Sandra A. Riemer is the Chair of the Bankruptcy and Restructuring Practice Group of Phillips Nizer LLP, concentrating in the areas of Corporate Reorganization and Creditors’ Rights. Ms. Riemer has extensive experience representing business clients in all aspects of practice, with particular emphasis on the areas of bankruptcy, creditors’ rights, workouts and corporate reorganization, in both domestic and international contexts. She has represented corporations and institutions located throughout and outside the United States. Her experience includes the representation of debtors-in-possession, creditors’ committees, a Chapter 11 trustee, individual creditors (both secured and unsecured), and acquirors of assets, in nationally-prominent cases (some with cross-border filings). Her work includes both the litigation and corporate aspects of the practice. Ms. Riemer has also represented financially-troubled companies in public debt restructurings and federal securities law issues and has handled both the sale and acquisition of troubled companies.

Representative Transactions

• Representation of a member of the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors in the Chapter 11 cases of Delphi Corporation and its affiliates.
• Secured court approval of representation, paid from the Chapter 11 estates, for creditors holding approximately $80 million out of a total of approximately $1 billion in debt in the Chapter 11 cases of L.J. Hooker Corporation, Inc. and its affiliates (including B. Altman and Company and Bonwit Teller, Inc.) and in connection with the provisional liquidations of the ultimate parent company and its affiliates in Australia.  Ms. Riemer’s representation resulted in significant recovery for her clients, who would, otherwise, have received little or nothing.
• Represented White Motor Corporation and its affiliates throughout the world in their Chapter 11 cases, which established many of the standards for practice under the Bankruptcy Code.  Also dealt with the differing laws existing in Canada and Australia and their impact on White Motor Corporation’s Canadian and Australian affiliates.
• Represented the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors of Diamond Rug & Carpet Mills, Inc. in Diamond’s Chapter 11 case pending in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Georgia.  Aggressively negotiated on behalf of the Committee for improved terms with respect to the sale of a substantial portion of Diamond’s operating assets; and was successful in preserving significant claims against insiders in a hotly-contested plan confirmation process that, nonetheless, permitted the timely closing of the asset sale.
• Represented Mission Insurance Group in connection with the involuntary Chapter 11 petition filed against it by its public debtholders, and the conservatorship of its insurance company subsidiaries.
• Represented the acquiror of United Press International in a contested bidding process and an expedited acquisition.
• Represented a regulated medical waste incineration company and its affiliate in their Chapter 11 cases; and was successful in orchestrating a bidding process that resulted in the sale of substantially all of the operating assets for the highest possible value.  This required the resolution of a number of issues relating to the industrial development bond issue and the letters of credit securing performance on the bonds.
• Represented the Chapter 11 Trustee in the Lion Capital case, which required the resolution of litigations respecting numerous repurchase and reverse repurchase agreements for the successful confirmation of a plan of reorganization.
• Represented a major landlord in establishing a new and favorable legal interpretation of a landlord’s rights in bankruptcy (and defending it on appeal) in the cases filed by R.H. Macy & Co., Inc. and its affiliates.
• Successfully obtained the right to file a Creditors’ Committee plan of reorganization and confirmed such plan (a relatively unusual occurrence given the Bankruptcy Code’s initial grant to the Debtor of the exclusive right to do so).
• Achieved extremely favorable results in a heavily negotiated workout, representing three Midwestern radio stations in negotiations with their lenders.
• Represented one of the co-chairs of the Creditors’ Committee in the Forstmann & Company, Inc. Chapter 11 case.

Honors: 

• Selected as a "Super Lawyer" in the 2010 Corporate Counsel Edition in Bankruptcy & Creditor/Debtor Rights.
• Selected as a "Super Lawyer" in 2009 in Bankruptcy & Creditor/Debtor Rights in the Metro New York area.
• Selected as a "Super Lawyer" in 2008 in Bankruptcy & Creditor/Debtor Rights, Business Corporate, Business Litigation in the Metro New York area.
• Selected as a "Super Lawyer" in 2007 in Bankruptcy & Creditor/Debtor Rights in the Metro New York area.
• Selected as a "Super Lawyer" in 2006 in Bankruptcy & Creditor/Debtor Rights in the Metro New York area.

Professional Memberships:

• American Bar Assn.
• Assn. of the Bar of the City of NY
• District of Columbia Bar
• International Women's Insolvency and Restructuring Confederation