A&O Shearman global insights

In this eye-opening episode of A&O Shearman’s Global Restructuring Outlook podcast series, hosts Viola Jing, Partner in the Hong Kong Restructuring Team, and Katrina Buckley, Global Co-Head of Restructuring, delve into the seismic shifts reshaping the restructuring landscape in Greater China.  

With the real estate sector at the epicenter of financial distress, they unpack how government policy, market volatility, and mounting debt have triggered a wave of complex restructuring efforts across both mainland China and Hong Kong.

Listeners will gain insider perspectives on how offshore schemes of arrangement, debt-to-equity swaps, and “closed door” liability management exercises are being deployed to stabilize some of the region’s largest property developers.  

The episode also explores the broader economic implications of these restructurings, including their impact on Hong Kong’s bearish property market, the office rental crisis, and the struggling hotel sector.  

What does this mean for investors, creditors, and policymakers? And how might these developments ripple across the global financial system? 

Tune in to explore how China’s real estate credit crunch is reshaping offshore and onshore restructuring strategies. 

Global Restructuring Outlook 2025 explores the key legal, financial, and geopolitical developments shaping the restructuring landscape worldwide. Featuring expert insights from across jurisdictions—including the U.S., UK, EU, China, and the UAE—the series examines landmark rulings, evolving insolvency regimes, and the growing influence of private credit. Designed for business leaders and restructuring professionals, each episode offers strategic perspectives on navigating distressed situations and unlocking value in complex, cross-border environments. 

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China’s restructuring landscape dominated by struggles of real estate sector  

 

In this episode of Global Restructuring Outlook 2025, A&O Shearman’s experts dive into one of the most transformative forces in today’s restructuring landscape: the rise of credit funds and private capital investors.  

As traditional bank-led restructurings give way to more flexible, creative, and often more consensual processes, credit funds are reshaping how distressed situations are managed across jurisdictions—from the U.S. and U.K. to Continental Europe and Australia. 

What happens when lenders are no longer bound by prudential regulation? How do looser loan covenants and liability management transactions change the game for borrowers in distress? And what risks emerge when credit funds delay enforcement or disclosure of defaults?  

This episode explores the global implications of these shifts, including the regulatory responses now emerging in markets like Australia, and the growing trend toward out-of-court settlements. 

Join Karen McMaster, Aroen Kuitenbrouwer, Bernhard Herding, Sven Pruefer, Javier Castresana, and Paolo Manganelli—partners in A&O Shearman’s global restructuring group—as they unpack the evolving role of credit funds in distressed deals. 

With deep experience across jurisdictions and sectors, these speakers offer sharp insights into how private capital is driving innovation, litigation, and new deal structures in the restructuring world. 

Global Restructuring Outlook 2025 explores the key legal, financial, and geopolitical developments shaping the restructuring landscape worldwide. Featuring expert insights from across jurisdictions—including the U.S., UK, EU, China, and the UAE—the series examines landmark rulings, evolving insolvency regimes, and the growing influence of private credit. Designed for business leaders and restructuring professionals, each episode offers strategic perspectives on navigating distressed situations and unlocking value in complex, cross-border environments. 

In this episode of Global Restructuring Outlook 2025, A&O Shearman’s restructuring experts dive into the evolving European restructuring landscape, where legal reform and rising litigation are reshaping the way distressed businesses navigate financial recovery.  

 As EU member states continue to implement the EU Preventive Restructuring Directive, the result is a patchwork of national approaches that are driving both innovation and contention in restructuring processes. 

From London to Milan, the episode explores how cross-border legal harmonization, court challenges, and creditor activism are influencing deal certainty and timing. The discussion highlights how the increasingly coercive nature of restructuring plans—often challenged by creditors or unsupported by key classes—has made litigation a central feature of European restructurings.  

What does this mean for businesses trying to stay afloat? How are courts responding to valuation disputes and cramdowns? And what strategies should stakeholders adopt to navigate this complex terrain? 

Featuring insights from leading voices in the field, this episode includes contributions from: 

• Karen McMaster, Partner, A&O Shearman 

• Aroen Kuitenbrouwer, Partner, A&O Shearman 

• Bernhard Herding, Partner, A&O Shearman 

• Sven Pruefer, Partner, A&O Shearman 

• Javier Castresana, Partner, A&O Shearman 

• Paolo Manganelli, Partner, A&O Shearman 

These seasoned restructuring professionals bring perspectives from key European jurisdictions including the UK, Netherlands, Germany, Spain, and Italy. Their analysis offers a panoramic view of how legislative shifts and courtroom dynamics are redefining the rules of engagement for distressed companies and their creditors. 

Global Restructuring Outlook 2025 explores the key legal, financial, and geopolitical developments shaping the restructuring landscape worldwide. Featuring expert insights from across jurisdictions—including the U.S., UK, EU, China, and the UAE—the series examines landmark rulings, evolving insolvency regimes, and the growing influence of private credit. Designed for business leaders and restructuring professionals, each episode offers strategic perspectives on navigating distressed situations and unlocking value in complex, cross-border environments. 

In this opening episode of A&O Shearman’s Global Restructuring Outlook 2025 podcast series, hosts Luckey McDowell, U.S. Head of Restructuring, and Fredric Sosnick, Global Co-Head of Restructuring and Executive Committee member, unpack the implications of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Harrington v. Purdue Pharma L.P.  

This landmark decision has outlawed non-consensual third-party releases in Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings—upending decades of precedent and reshaping the landscape for mass tort and complex restructurings in the United States. 

Drawing on their deep experience advising clients in high-stakes insolvency and restructuring matters, McDowell and Sosnick explore how the Purdue ruling will affect future bankruptcy strategies, creditor recoveries, and the ability of courts to facilitate global settlements.  

What does it mean for companies facing mass tort liabilities? Will this ruling lead to more fragmented litigation and fewer comprehensive resolutions? And how might this shift influence cross-border restructurings and recognition of foreign proceedings under Chapter 15? 

This episode is essential listening for legal professionals, financial advisors, and anyone navigating the evolving terrain of U.S. bankruptcy law. Tune in to hear how this decision could redefine the boundaries of corporate liability and creditor rights—and what it signals for the future of restructuring in America and beyond. 

Global Restructuring Outlook 2025 explores the key legal, financial, and geopolitical developments shaping the restructuring landscape worldwide. Featuring expert insights from across jurisdictions—including the U.S., UK, EU, China, and the UAE—the series examines landmark rulings, evolving insolvency regimes, and the growing influence of private credit. Designed for business leaders and restructuring professionals, each episode offers strategic perspectives on navigating distressed situations and unlocking value in complex, cross-border environments. 

Related Content 

Global restructuring outlook – episode #2: How new laws, litigation, and cutting-edge transactions are redefining the European restructuring landscape 

Global restructuring outlook – episode #3: The growing influence of private credit funds on restructuring situations – and what the future holds 

The UN Climate Change Conference in Baku closed on November 24, 2024, with outcomes that will reverberate through legal, regulatory, and commercial frameworks across multiple sectors. For businesses and their advisers, making sense of what those outcomes actually mean requires insight from across the legal spectrum. 

A&O Shearman convened a panel of specialists from its Brussels, London, New York, and Paris offices to provide a multi-practice reading of the conference's most significant results. The panel examines COP29 through the lens of environment and climate, carbon markets, energy and natural resources, infrastructure and project finance, and international trade.  

What did the conference deliver on finance commitments, and what did it leave unresolved? How do the outcomes affect transition planning and carbon market frameworks? And what should in-house counsel and compliance teams be doing in response? 

Note: This episode was originally delivered as a live webinar on November 26, 2024. 

AI is no longer a niche procurement item or a discrete IT risk—it's a pervasive capability that is reshaping how businesses contract, allocate liability, and protect IP and data across the entire commercial portfolio. 

In this episode, Alex Shandro, partner in the AI practice at A&O Shearman (London), and Jane Lavin, senior knowledge lawyer in A&O Shearman’s Digital, Data, IP and Technology team (London), unpack how artificial intelligence is driving both new categories of commercial agreements and new layers of contractual protection.  

They explore why an immediate priority for many organisations is to audit their existing universe of contracts and templates, and to embed targeted, AI-specific safeguards that reflect the technology, deployment model and use case at hand. 

Where are counterparties landing on high‑impact issues like training rights, benchmarking, model explainability, change management and allocation of “hallucination” risk? How should businesses balance innovation value against downstream exposure in complex supply chains? And what does a technology‑ and use‑case‑led approach actually look like when you are sitting at the negotiating table? 

Whether you are procuring foundation models, embedding AI into SaaS and managed services, or facing hidden AI exposure in “ordinary” commercial arrangements, this conversation offers a clear framework for triaging risk and building durable protections. 

In this episode of The Fuse Podcast, Shruti Ajitsaria, Head of Fuse at A&O Shearman, leads a thought-provoking discussion on how distributed ledger technology (DLT) is reshaping the future of collateral management in global capital markets.  

Collateral—ranging from equities to fixed-income bonds—plays a critical role as a credit mitigant, yet inefficiencies in current systems create friction, settlement risks, and operational delays. Could DLT be the key to unlocking real-time settlement and reducing delivery-versus-payment failures? 

What does this mean for market participants, and how close are we to widespread adoption? What legal and regulatory frameworks need to evolve to support this transformation? And how will interoperability between traditional and digital systems shape the future of financial markets? 

Joining Shruti for this deep dive are three leading voices in the digital finance ecosystem: 

• Olly Benkert, Co-Founder and Chairman of HQLAx, a pioneer in using DLT to enhance efficiencies in securities finance and repo markets. 
• Mathew McDermott, Global Head of Digital Assets at Goldman Sachs, driving innovation in digital asset strategy and infrastructure. 
• Philippe Noeltner, Partner at A&O Shearman, specializing in debt securities issuance, fintech, derivatives, and market infrastructure. 

Together, they explore the opportunities and challenges of implementing DLT-based collateral solutions, from regulatory considerations to the likelihood of market adoption.  

The Fuse Podcast brings together industry leaders, technologists, and legal experts to explore the intersection of emerging technologies and law. Each episode offers practical insights into how innovation is reshaping business models, regulatory frameworks, and operational strategies. Designed for decision-makers navigating digital transformation, this series delivers forward-looking conversations that decode complex trends and spotlight actionable opportunities as technology drives the future of law. 

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Luxembourg strengthens its DLT Strategy with a new Bill – How Luxembourg is creating legal certainty for DLT-based financial instruments. 

Luxembourg introduces new legal framework for dematerialised securities using DLT – Expanding the use of DLT for equity and debt securities. 

Tokenisation of Bonds in Hong Kong: Lessons Learned – Practical insights from a real-world DLT bond issuance project. 

The return of Donald Trump to the White House has reignited global debate on the future of employment law. What does this political shift mean for workers’ rights, employer obligations, and the evolving dynamics of the workplace? In this episode, we unpack the ripple effects of U.S. policy changes on labor markets worldwide. 

Join Brian Jebb, U.S. employment law expert at A&O Shearman, and Sarah Henchoz, London-based partner specializing in employment and compensation, as they explore the critical issues shaping the future of work.  

Will the “Buy American, Hire American” initiative make a comeback, and what could that mean for global mobility? How will union relations and collective bargaining evolve under the new administration? And what role will diversity, equity, and inclusion play in a post-affirmative action era? 

From the uncertain fate of non-compete clauses and gig worker protections to the implications of the Supreme Court’s affirmative action ruling, this conversation offers practical insights for employers navigating a rapidly changing legal landscape. 

On Employment delivers timely insights and practical guidance on the fast-evolving world of employment law. Each episode explores key legal developments, workplace trends, and HR strategy challenges—from investigations and litigation risk to diversity, hybrid working, and regulatory change. Designed for business leaders, HR professionals, and in-house counsel, the series offers expert perspectives to help organizations navigate complexity and foster resilient, compliant workplaces. 

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Key employment law changes post elections: insights from our global experts – A deep dive into anticipated employment law reforms in the U.S., U.K., and EU following recent elections, including DE&I and union relations. 

Global labor market restrictions prompt new antitrust challenges – Analysis of non-compete bans, no-poach agreements, and their enforcement globally.  

Increased Focus on Forced Labor in the U.S. and EU – How supply chain compliance and forced labor laws intersect with global employment obligations.  

Credit risk transfer and significant risk transfer have become two of the most talked‑about structures in global finance—but what, exactly, lies behind the names?  

In this episode of Market Horizons, members of our international structured finance team unpack the labels, the legal and regulatory context across key markets, and the practical uses driving adoption on both sides of the Atlantic. From portfolio optimization to capital relief, the conversation offers a clear, non‑technical primer designed for listeners across the U.S., Europe and beyond. 

Moderated by Robert Simmons in London, the discussion brings together:  

• Donna Parisi, Global Co‑Head, Global Financial Markets (New York) 
• Parya Badie, Partner (London) 
• James Bryson, Senior Associate (New York) 

Together, they explore why market participants use terms like “CRT,” “SRT,” and other shorthand and what those terms reveal about the product’s features, stakeholders and objectives.  

How do naming conventions hint at structural mechanics, regulatory touchpoints and risk allocation? Where do U.S. and European approaches align and where do they diverge? And as the market matures, what should originators and investors be watching next? 

This episode demystifies a complex area without sacrificing substance, offering practical takeaways for banks, asset managers and anyone tracking capital and balance sheet innovation. If you have ever wondered how a few short letters can signal a deal’s design, governance and purpose, this conversation will help you read between the lines and listen for what matters. 

France operates one of Europe's most layered and long-established restructuring frameworks, ranging from entirely voluntary confidential processes to court-supervised collective procedures that can bind all creditors, including dissenters. Navigating this spectrum strategically requires a clear understanding of what each tool offers, when it becomes available, and how French courts have approached the most contested issues in recent proceedings. 

Christopher Poel, senior knowledge lawyer at A&O Shearman, is joined by Tristan Jambu-Merlin and Antoine Santoni to examine the full range of French restructuring procedures. The discussion covers the amicable and voluntary processes at one end of the spectrum, including conciliation and the mandat ad hoc, examining their use, confidentiality protections, and strategic advantages for debtors seeking to restructure without formal court involvement. It then turns to the collective procedures that carry binding effect over all creditors, including safeguard and accelerated safeguard, considering how these interact with the voluntary processes and the practical circumstances in which companies make the transition from one to the other. How are French courts currently approaching disputed restructuring plans? What are the most instructive recent examples of these procedures being deployed? And what should international creditors understand about how their rights are protected under each route? 

Restructuring advisers, distressed investors, and legal professionals working with French corporate debtors or creditors will leave this episode with a structured and current view of how the French system operates in practice. 

Restructuring Across Borders maps the restructuring and insolvency landscape across more than 50 jurisdictions worldwide, drawing on the expertise of A&O Shearman's global restructuring group and its partner law firms. Each episode examines the pre-insolvency tools, court-supervised procedures, and emerging developments in a specific jurisdiction, with a focus on the practical implications for debtors, creditors, and cross-border advisers. The series accompanies A&O Shearman's Restructuring Across Borders Toolkit, a free reference resource available at aoshearman.com.