Biography: Insolvency & Restructuring

Dr Lars Westpfahl is head of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer's German restructuring and insolvency practice. As a dedicated expert in the field he has handled a wide range of restructuring-related problems.

Lars has been involved in many of the most visible workouts of distressed debt of German borrowers acting, as the case may be, for the lenders or the borrower. Amongst those are transactions that have shaped the current German restructuring/insolvency environment (eg, iesy Hessen, Ihr Platz, Karstadt, PrimaCom, Rodenstock etc).

Many of Lars' involvements have a cross-border flavour. Namely, he has been retained as European counsel to Chapter 11 committees on multiple occasions with a focus on transatlantic restructurings. Furthermore, Lars has worked on various cases within the scope of the European Regulation on Insolvency Proceedings.

Lars is a regular speaker at both domestic and international conferences on restructuring and insolvency and his publications include a German language book on cross-border insolvencies (with a focus on the European Regulation on Insolvency Proceedings).