Richard C. Pedone Partner rpedone@nixonpeabody.com 617-345-1305 Fax: 866-947-1890 Boston, MA Download vCard

Practice Areas

Bankruptcy & Financial Restructuring
Hedge Funds & Alternative Investments Litigation
Subprime Task Force
Corporate Trust

Experience

Mr. Pedone represents secured creditors, strategic buyers of financially troubled businesses, purchasers of distressed debt, creditors’ committees, asset purchasers, and others in the financial restructuring and bankruptcy processes. He also frequently represents corporations in workout negotiations with their creditors and bankruptcy planning.

Mr. Pedone is a Fellow of the International Association of Insolvency and Restructuring Professionals. He regularly represents creditors, including indentures trustees and other fiduciaries, in cross-border insolvency matters.

Mr. Pedone represented Wilmington Trust Company as collateral agent, indenture trustee, and agent in connection with $2.5 billion in debt secured by more than a dozen power plants in the Calpine bankruptcy cases pending in New York.

Mr. Pedone has developed deep experience in franchise restructuring matters. In 2005, he received a Transaction of the Year Award from the Turnaround Management Association for his team’s work helping the franchisees of the Ground Round restaurant chain use their claims to purchase the company’s franchise assets out of bankruptcy. Franchisors that he has represented in complicated multi-unit franchisee bankruptcies include Dunkin’ Donuts and Bennigan’s.

Mr. Pedone’s effectiveness as a restructuring attorney is greatly enhanced by his litigation and trial experience. Trials and evidentiary hearings that he has conducted include a contest over creditors' rights to hundreds of millions of dollars in prepayment premiums and default interest in Calpine; contested asset sales in bankruptcy; the defense of a corporate veil piercing action for a French construction company under attack by its subsidiaries’ creditors and the prosecution of a complex commercial lease dispute. Mr. Pedone has also successfully defended several of these trial successes at the appellate level.

Recent Speaking Engagements and Legal Education Activity

• Speaker on Cross-Border Insolvency Issues at presentation on Bankruptcy and the Global Economic Crisis, Italy-America Chamber of Commerce
• Panelist, The Derivatives Market, What Comes Next, discussing impact of bankruptcy on derivatives contracts
• Speaker, “Bankruptcy Issues in Franchising”, International Franchise Association Legal Forum
• Panelist, Harvard Business School Symposium on Turnaround Management
• Speaker on bankruptcy Issues, Commercial Lease Drafting and Negotiation
• Speaker and award recipient, Turnaround Management Association
• Speaker, "Expert Witness Discovery Issues in Bankruptcy", Boston Bar Association 

Honors

Mr. Pedone was recently selected by his peers for inclusion in Boston Magazine's Super Lawyers (Copyright 2006 Key Professional Media, Inc.). Inclusion in Super Lawyers is based on a peer-review survey.

Admissions

Mr. Pedone is admitted to practice in Massachusetts and before the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Mr. Pedone has appeared pro hac vice in bankruptcy cases across the United States.

Education

Boston College, J.D., cum laude
Bates College, B.A., honors in Political Science
London School of Economics, M.S.c., Comparative Government

Affiliations

Mr. Pedone is the president and member of board of directors, Courageous Sailing Center, Charlestown, MA, a nonprofit that provides the children of Boston with the opportunity to sail on the ocean free of charge.

In addition he is a member of the board of directors, Lincoln Maritime Center, Hingham, MA; member of the American Bankruptcy Institute, Turnaround Management Association, Boston Bar Association (Bankruptcy Section), INSOL International, International Franchise Association, and American Bar Association Forum on Franchising.