Ted A. Berkowitz, partner and general counsel to the firm, will be a featured speaker on a panel session entitled “Mediating with a Higher Power: Mediation of Disputes with Governments and Governmental Agencies”  at the American Bankruptcy Institute’s Winter Leadership Conference on December 5-7, 2019 in Rancho Palos Verdes, California.

Although mediation is a recommended method of dispute resolution by many government agencies, in the bankruptcy context it is often hard to get government litigants to the table. This session will explore the issues and methods of mediating disputes in commercial cases that involve governments and such government agencies as the SEC, EPA, and FCC, as well as state attorneys general and relevant state agencies. Issues to be discussed include how to get the decision maker into the room and how to get a governmental party to the table when its policy agenda may go beyond the business issues in the case at hand. In some instances, there may be perceived statutory impediments or “conflicts” between the government agency as regulator and as creditor. The focus will be on restructuring-determinative issues involving government agencies and adversary proceedings between debtors or other creditor constituencies and government agencies.

For additional information about the conference, visit:  ABI Winter Leadership Conference