For over 20 years, Keith Cunningham has provided business and legal counsel to clients in bankruptcy and creditors' rights matters, debt financings and commercial transactions.
Chambers USA writes that Keith "is praised by clients for his ‘very practical and strategic advice.'"
In bankruptcy and creditors' rights matters, Keith's representation encompasses a wide range of interests, including secured creditors, trade creditors, governmental agencies, lessors, licensors, licensees, acquirers of assets from bankruptcy estates, and acquirers of entities in bankruptcy. Keith's experience includes commercial collections, adequate protection issues, reclamation claims, cash collateral authority, automatic stay relief, claims allowance and litigation, preference and fraudulent transfer risk management and defense, and Chapter 11 plan issues. In debt financings and commercial transactions, Keith is regularly called upon by financial institutions, business entities and government agencies to help structure, negotiate and document complex secured and unsecured credit facilities and commercial agreements.
Before joining the firm in 1996, Keith clerked for the Honorable Mark W. Vaughn of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Hampshire, and chaired the Bankruptcy/Creditors' Rights/Loan Workout Practice Group of a large New Hampshire firm.
Recent Experience
- Representing multiple creditors (secured and unsecured) in FairPoint Communications, Inc.'s Chapter 11 case (S.D.N.Y.), including two of Northern New England's largest investor owned public utilities
- Represented a New England healthcare institution in the negotiation and documentation of $112 million of direct pay letters of credit to provide replacement credit enhancement and liquidity support for tax exempt bond issuances
- Representing the California Department of Water Resources in its efforts to recover overcharges resulting from the 2000-2001 western energy crisis, with past successes including bankruptcy settlements with Chapter 11 debtors Mirant Corporation (N.D. Tex.), Enron Corporation (S.D.N.Y.) and NEGT (D. Md.) resulting in allowed secured and unsecured claims totaling in excess of $2.4 billion
- Successfully represented a defendant alleged to have received in excess of $7 million in preferential payments by the Litigation Trustee in In re Quebecor World (USA), Inc. (S.D.N.Y.)
- Represented a NYSE traded apparel and footwear manufacturer in a $300 million credit facility
- Lead counsel for a publicly traded mezzanine debt and private equity firm in the sale, at foreclosure, of an integrated 25.85 megawatt wood-fired power plant and associated woodchip operation
- Lead counsel for a multi-national Tier 2 auto parts supplier in making contested reclamation, section 503(b)(9), unsecured and administrative claims against Chapter 11 Tier 1 auto parts suppliers Delphi Corporation and Lear Corporation (S.D.N.Y.), successfully negotiating a consensual resolution of all claims, including a trade agreement with Lear Corporation that resulted in payment in full of all pre and post-petition claims of client
Honors & Distinctions
Keith is included in
The Best Lawyers in America for Bankruptcy and Creditor-Debtor Rights Law. He is also included in the
Chambers USA: America's Leading Business Lawyers for corporate and M&A law. Keith has an AV® Preeminent rating by
Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory, and in 2008 was named a New England Super Lawyer by
Law & Politics, a designation bestowed upon only five percent of the lawyers in New England.
Professional Activities
Member, Maine Bar Association and American Bankruptcy Institute
Civic Activities
Treasurer, Board of Advisors, Salvation Army of Greater Portland, 2007-present