Global Restructuring Review incluye a CARLES CUESTA entre los 100 mejores despachos del mundo en reestructuraciones, concurso de acreedores e insolvencias a nivel internacional

¿Por qué considera Global Restructuring Review que nuestro equipo experto en insolvencias está entre los 100 mejores del mundo y entre los 5 mejores de España?

En la foto, nuestros socios en la entrega de premios GRR Awards 2o19 que tuvo lugar en Londres.

Podéis descargar el pdf en 2019.05.14 GRR. Carles Cuesta profile GRR 100 2019 o leer a continuación.

History of the practice

Madrid boutique Carles Cuesta is the brainchild of former Garrigues partners José Carles and Carlos Cuesta, who were part of the team that established their old firm’s restructuring and insolvency department in 2008. They set up this legal boutique in 2011, eyeing the number of medium-sized companies facing trouble following Spain’s economic crisis. Among their first clients was freight forwarder Barnatrans, for whom Carles Cuesta negotiated with over 500 creditors across four continents.

The firm engages in advocacy and lobbying for the profession to the Spanish government, and it says it influenced Spain’s 2013 personal insolvency legislation. It also has ties with academia, and its lawyers hold teaching posts at some of Spain’s most prominent law schools.

Network

The main centre is in Madrid, where Carles Cuesta is based. It has also had an office in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria since 2013, led by senior associate Beatriz Reus.

Who uses it?

Banco Santander, explosives group Maxam, Canary Islands airline Islas Airways and construction group Urconsa are among its major Spanish clients. Further afield Norwegian technology company Strongpoint, Swedish engineering group Sandvik, and Italy’s Alitalia, have all used the firm’s services. With an abundance of cross-border work on its books, the firm has also collaborated with foreign law firms Mishcon de Reya in the UK, Schubert Collin in France, and Delacour in Denmark.

Historic track record

Carles Cuesta had a role in the €8.9 billion Abengoa restructuring, one of the biggest in Spain’s history and the first major company to use the new 5bis pre-insolvency law. The firm filed a compulsory insolvency petition on behalf of IT consultancy Stratesys opposing Abengoa’s refinancing agreement on fraud grounds.

Back in 2013, it acted for the Spanish subsidiary of US consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble, in the insolvency of hairdresser chain Marco Aldany, successfully obtaining full recovery of its claims.

The following year it acted for Barnatrans, successfully negotiating with over 500 creditors including major Spanish banks and international shipping and logistics companies Hapag Lloyd,

Maerk and Bel International, reaching out-of-court agreements with 85% of them after it realised it wouldn’t be able to comply with the court-approved arrangement. It went on to win retrospective court approval of the restructuring under the Spanish Insolvency Action 2014 – the first time this had been done according to the firm.

In 2017, Carles Cuesta took instructions in the €3.6 billion insolvency proceedings of Spanish/Portuguese real estate business Reyal Urbis – the third largest in Spanish history. It represented the court procedural representative of the company in a claim for his unpaid fees, and managed to settle with the insolvency practitioners out of court.

For the Canary Islands subsidiary of Swedish truck dealer SCANIA, which had €30 million of liabilities, it led the quickest-ever arrangement with creditors to be reached in the Canaries, taking just nine months.

Recent events

Perhaps most notably, Carles and Cuesta are acting for British property developer Glenn Maud as the indirect owner of insolvent investment vehicle Marme, which owns Banco Santander’s €3 billion headquarters and has been contesting litigation in various forums for a number of years.

The pair are also representing Maud and his business partner Derek Quinlan in the insolvency of Dutch vehicle Delma Projectontwikkeling and its parent Ramblas Investments, which they also own, and which were used to finance the purchase of the Madrid headquarters.

Elsewhere, Carles and Cuesta are acting for French telecoms company Sopra Steria as an unsecured creditor that petitioned for the forced insolvency proceedings of Abengoa subsidiary Simosa IT. The pair managed to ensure 50% of Steria’s claim was treated as privileged and gained a priority over the rest of Simosa’s commercial creditors.

The duo are also currently providing counsel to the Danish insolvency practitioner of advertising software company Gravity4 Europe in a petition before the Spanish courts. They had acted for the Spanish subsidiary of Danish company Smartresponse in pre-insolvency proceedings, following the company’s acquisition of Gravity4 Europe’s assets, and in a subsequent petition to declare the purchase void.

The firm recently hired associate Morad Maanan Tieb in Madrid from Clifford Chance.