By order dated July 11, 2025 and full decision dated July 29, 2025, WMD obtained complete summary judgment on behalf of its client, a prominent West Coast-based international private equity firm, against two individual personal guarantors. Our client served as lender and/or administrative agent for a series of loan agreements and promissory notes arising out of a complex bankruptcy proceeding of a large company in the oil-and-gas industry. When the borrowers defaulted on the loans in 2023, WMD brought suit via summary judgment in lieu of complaint in the New York County Supreme Court on behalf of our client against the loans’ personal guarantors, who each guaranteed up to $20,000,000 in the event of a default. The defendants removed the case to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on the basis of diversity jurisdiction.

The defendant guarantors attempted to raise questions of fact concerning the dispositions of certain pieces of collateral which secured the debt and the allocation of proceeds from those sales. On an expedited schedule, WMD reviewed and produced over one million pages of documents related to numerous complex transactions, including the lengthy sale process of a major coastal shipyard. In June 2025, WMD moved for summary judgment and presented evidence of the commercial reasonableness and legality of the transactions and subsequent allocations of proceeds. Defendants cross-moved for summary judgment in their favor. In an Order dated July 11, 2025, Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the Southern District of New York agreed with WMD that there was no issue of material fact and granted summary judgment in favor of our client in the amount of $40,000,000.

On July 29, 2025, the Court issued its full opinion for the Order in the plaintiff’s favor. Judge Rakoff found that the evidence presented by WMD established unambiguously that the amount outstanding under the loans exceeded $40,000,000 by far. The Court dismissed the defendants’ defenses, including their claim that the personal guaranties were unconscionable and their argument that certain uncollected collateral must be fully exhausted prior to enforcing the guaranties. Defendants’ cross-motion for summary judgment was denied, and WMD’s client was determined to be entitled to a final judgment of $40,000,000 from the defendants as a matter of law.