Darryl Scott Laddin

Partner

Direct: 404.873.8120
Fax: 404.873.8121
Atlanta
171 17th Street NW
Suite 2100
Atlanta, Georgia 30363

Biography

Darryl is a partner and chair of the Bankruptcy, Creditors’ Rights & Financial Restructuring practice and served on the firm’s Executive Committee for many years. He has a national practice encompassing a broad range of commercial litigation and bankruptcy matters. He advises debtors and creditors, including secured lenders, trade creditors, and official creditors’ committees, regarding issues surrounding the restructuring of commercial indebtedness and creditors’ rights matters under the Bankruptcy Code and the Uniform Commercial Code. Darryl helps major constituents in Chapter 11 cases involving bankruptcy, jurisdictional, and procedural issues. Darryl handles small as well as multi-million dollar complex commercial litigation matters in Bankruptcy Court and District Court (including defending preference, fraudulent transfer, and other avoidance claims). In a related area of practice, Darryl represents financial institutions in documenting commercial loans, including asset-based lending arrangements. Darryl also is experienced in representing constituents, including owners, operators, and landlords, in connection with the disposition of distressed healthcare facilities, including skilled nursing facilities and nursing homes. Additionally, Darryl has significant experience in obtaining asset recoveries in fraud cases and has niche experience in issues affecting airlines and the leasing of aircraft.

Experience

  • Successfully defended seven-figure preference action, despite weak traditional statutory defenses, by challenging Trustee’s ability to establish debtor’s insolvency at time of transfers as element of his prima facie case.

  • Obtained seminal rulings from Bankruptcy Courts in the Eastern District of New York and Western District of Virginia concluding that section 366 of the Bankruptcy Code applies in bankruptcy cases of resellers of telecommunications services.

  • Following the refusal by Trustee to dismiss preference action not satisfying statutory prerequisites, filed motion to dismiss in the Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey and obtained subsequent dismissal.

  • Serving as counsel to lender in connection with supplying $20 million of senior secured debt financing to private equity firm to facilitate its leveraged buyout of boat manufacturer. Proceeds of the loan were used to consummate the acquisition, refinancing existing indebtedness, and provide working capital to the operating company. Completing the deal required intensive intercreditor negotiations related to the target company’s existing showroom and inventory financing arrangements.

  • Successfully obtained full payment of financial institution’s multi-million dollar asset-based loan to affiliated companies, following borrowers’ bankruptcy filings, the providing of a roll-up debtor-in-possession financing facility by the financial institution, and subsequent sales of assets by the affiliated debtors.

  • Serving as counsel to construction lender in connection with syndicated $35 million construction loan, in transaction that involved complex issues in construction, bankruptcy, healthcare regulations and operations, and corporate lending, including an intricate intercreditor agreement.

  • Obtained a Trustee’s agreement not to pursue in excess of $10 million in alleged fraudulent transfers after extensive analysis with respect to solvency of certain debtors and consideration and value received by other debtors for payments made by them.

  • Obtained outright dismissal of a series of contempt actions filed in the Bankruptcy Court in Tennessee asserting violations of the automatic stay of section 362 and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act based on assertions that creditor filed false proofs of claim and committed a fraud upon the Court.

  • Serving as counsel to the nation’s largest equipment rental company in obtaining a $7 million federal district court judgment based on disputed indemnification language in a complex transaction involving an asset purchase agreement and subordinated notes, and successfully defending that judgment on appeal to the Eleventh Circuit.

  • Successfully obtained dismissal by the Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey, on a Motion to Dismiss, of 10-count, multi-million dollar complaint filed by the debtor on the basis that Complaint failed to comply with the Iqbal and Twombly pleading standards.

  • Successfully obtained full payment of creditor’s claim after extensive litigation in the Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Florida in which client won a multitude of litigated matters, including obtaining the remand (following removal to the Bankruptcy Court by the Debtor) to the Florida state court of the debtor’s appeal of an arbitration award issued in the client’s favor, defense of the debtor’s motion to disqualify the creditor’s vote on the grounds of alleged bias, and the blocking of confirmation of a Plan that failed to provide the required treatment for the client under the Bankruptcy Code.

  • Successfully obtained ruling from the Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California denying a Trustee’s motion for leave to amend a fraudulent conveyance complaint to add over $1 million in additional transfers to the complaint, on the ground that the statute of limitations had expired and the additional transfers did not relate back to the filing of the original complaint and therefore were time-barred.

  • Successfully obtained verdict for client in trial conducted by Chief Bankruptcy Judge for the Southern District of New York on a debtor’s objection to client’s claim involving complex factual, procedural and legal issues and pursuit of significant counterclaims against client, obtained a successful subsequent verdict in trial on the single issue remanded by the District Court on appeal of the original verdict, and successfully defended the second judgment on appeal to the District Court and then to the Second Circuit following argument to a Second Circuit panel that included now Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

Credentials

  • Emory University School of Law, Juris Doctor,
    with Distinction
    • Order of the Coif
    • Robert W. Woodruff Fellow
    • Articles Editor, Emory Law Journal
  • Harvard University, Bachelor of Arts,
    magna cum laude
  • State of New York 1999
  • District of Columbia 1998
  • State of Georgia 1990
    • Atlanta Bar Association, Section of Bankruptcy
    • New York Bar Association

Recognition

  • Best Lawyers in America®, Bankruptcy and Creditor Debtor Rights/Insolvency and Reorganization Law, 2020-24
  • Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers, Bankruptcy/Restructuring, 2007-10, 2015-23
  • IFLR1000, Restructuring Law, 2020-23
  • Lawdragon 500 Leading Global Bankruptcy & Restructuring Lawyers, 2020-23
  • Georgia Super Lawyers, Bankruptcy Law, 2004-22
  • Lawyer of the Year (Bankruptcy and Restructuring), CorporateLiveWire, 2014
  • Georgia’s Top Rated Lawyers, Lexis Nexis®/Martindale-Hubbell®, 2012
  • “Legal Elite,” Georgia Trend, 2008, 2010-11

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