Philippe Métais is head of the Paris Litigation Practice. He focuses on business law litigation and has extensive experience in handling complex and substantial disputes involving banks, corporates and other business organizations. He also has a wealth of experience in handling restructuring and insolvency matters.

Philippe has represented banks and their defeasance structures in complex litigation designed to limit bank losses and pursue the liability of the borrowing corporations or their managers. In this regard, Philippe has overseen multiple actions filed in both civil and criminal courts.

He also has broad experience in litigation involving the enforcement of foreign and domestic judgments.

Philippe also represents clients in alternative dispute resolution procedures or in arbitration. In particular, he obtained a favorable arbitral award for a client in an arbitration procedure concerning the validity of a shareholders' agreement.

In the field of bankruptcy law, Philippe regularly assists creditors, debtors and investors in connection with pre-insolvency proceedings (mandat ad hoc, conciliation) or bankruptcies (safeguard, reorganization proceedings), and companies interested in the purchase of assets belonging to companies that are subject to bankruptcy proceedings.

Philippe is highly ranked by the leading legal benchmarking directories. In the 2012 edition of Chambers Global, he is praised for his "prowess in banking and insolvency litigation." He is also described as having a "worthy reputation in the French restructuring market" and is praised by clients for the "sound litigation tactics he brings to the table and his robust strategic approach."

Recent representations include:

Litigation

• Assisting a major French bank in connection with investigations by the American and French regulatory authorities;
• Assisting a major French bank in relation to a portfolio of real estate loans granted in Swiss Francs to individuals;
• Acting for an investment bank in French and English proceedings related to the enforcement of first demand guarantees provided under a Performance Bond;
• Representing an investment bank in obtaining a favorable judgment from the civil court of Nanterre in a case concerning French banking secrecy laws which determined that French banking secrecy constitutes a legitimate reason for non-production of the documents requested by the rogatory commission of the American Judge;
• Successful representation of a major French bank in obtaining an injunction in Paris Court proceedings to prevent it from paying €24 million first demand bank guarantees relating to an alleged breach of a construction contract between the bank and a company specialized in the production of building materials and a Russian party;
• Advising a Mexican bank on French law issues related to representation and succession rights, in the context of a major dispute in Mexico with some members of the family of a famous deceased artist;
• Advising a corporate company on pre-litigation issues arising out of disputes over industrial and commercial agreements and shareholders' agreements;
• Representing a real estate company, acting as owner of a shopping center, in a dispute with a lessee related to its past and future subscriptions to the storekeepers' association, after a decision of the Supreme Court confirming the nullity of the membership of the lessee to the storekeepers' association on the grounds of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR); and
• Assisting a bank as a civil party to criminal investigations into an alleged misappropriation of funds arising out of several real estate transactions financed by the bank.

Restructuring and insolvency

• Advising a leading supplier of manufacturing solutions to the life sciences industry in relation to its financial restructuring. This is a first of its kind restructuring transaction in France, made by converting a high yield bond debt into capital shares so that the bondholders become the majority shareholders of a group. Its particular complexity is due to the number of parties involved and the legal and tax constraints linked to the international nature of the group;
• Assisting the majority shareholder of a listed company in relation to the restructuring of an energy supplier;
• Assisting a potential investor in the negotiation of a conciliation agreement with a company involved in maritime transportation and its creditors;
• Assisting a holding company that had encountered financial difficulties and helped to negotiate extensions of the length of its bank loans. Also assisting with regard to whether the company should enter into conciliation or safeguard, as well as combining this procedure with a US Chapter 11 procedure;
• Assisting a French producer of construction materials on the renegotiation of its debt and the restructuring of its industrial sites pursuant to a French amicable pre-insolvency procedure (mandat ad hoc);
• Assisting a Spanish real estate group in a conciliation proceeding in France;
• Advising the pool of senior and second lien lenders on the debt restructuring of a chemical materials group for the construction industry;
• Assisting a group specializing in hotels and vacation residences in the judicial reorganization (redressement judiciaire) of eight companies in its group; and
• Representation of several foreign banks which were creditors of a European real estate group whose parent company, based in Luxembourg, was subject to a safeguard (sauvegarde) procedure opened in France under EU insolvency regulation (no. 1346/2000).

Bars and Courts
Paris Bar, 1987

Education
Master of Laws, University of Paris I, Sorbonne, 1986

Languages
French
English

Citizenship
France