The bigger picture

‘This was a record year for bankruptcies in Belgium,’ says Olivier Clevenbergh, managing partner of Stibbe’s Brussels office. ‘September was particularly bad. It was called the blackest month of the blackest quarter in the blackest year.’ Nonetheless, a raft of huge instructions has been picked up by law firms as a result of the crunch. ‘Take Lehman Brothers. It has 22 companies in Luxembourg. Somebody has to take care of them,’ comments Marc Kleyr, a cross-border restructuring partner at Luxembourg law firm Kleyr Grasso Associes.

Indeed, Linklaters has been acting for PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), as administrators of Lehman Brothers International (Europe), as well as for Lloyds in its acquisition of HBOS, while Stibbe advised on the state bailouts of Fortis and Dexia. Restructuring lawyers have never had it so good.

Dutch firm NautaDutilh recently launched a new Benelux restructuring and insolvency team of around 20 lawyers and litigators. Employment specialists throughout the region will be working flat out over the coming months. The instances of civil liberty questions being put to lawyers have increased, and ‘regulatory work in Luxembourg’s banking sector is extremely active,’ claims corporate partner Guy Harles of Luxembourg independent Arendt & Medernach. Collective dismissals, shareholder disputes and bad contracts drawn up during the good times are surfacing rapidly, and administrative lawyers can also expect busy times ahead. ‘Public funds and especially money-market funds are considered a safe haven right now,’ Harles says. ‘Industrial deals that were absent a year ago are increasingly visible as they take advantage of purchasing opportunities.’

Back in Belgium, public projects are feeding work to firms like Stibbe, Eubelius and DLA Piper. New bridges and roads are being constructed in Antwerp as part of a major regeneration drive. ‘The banks will lend on public projects as they know they will get the money back,’ Clevenbergh explains. ‘We are not seeing deals failing for lack of financing.’

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