Kim & Chang successfully represented a major domestic financial institution in a lawsuit seeking nullification of a mortgage established on behalf of domestic financial institution creditors during French appellate and cassation proceedings.  

Case Details / Our Representation:

The case involved multi-tiered, collateralized cross-border project financing debt facility for a real estate project in France, involving many special purpose vehicles incorporated in a number of different countries. 

Upon being retained by our client after the trial court had ruled against them, we produced new evidence and developed legal arguments, which we presented to the French appellate court regarding the inappropriateness of the trial court’s ruling, using a multi-pronged litigation strategy.  Our efforts were instrumental in uncovering the fact that the plaintiff's representative (who commenced the French legal proceeding) presented falsified factual arguments in the French proceedings.  

The French appellate court ultimately reversed the trial court’s judgment in its entirety, and the client was able to recover the collateral for the loans and interests in excess of EUR 113 million.  

On November 30, 2017, the French Cassation Court upheld the appellate court’s ruling, completely rejecting the appeal filed by the opposition.

Significance:

If the case had concluded in favor of the plaintiff, it would have been difficult to recover the astronomical amount of national wealth sent overseas via project financing.  Through our firm’s successful representation, we were able to contribute to our client’s recovery of domestic financial institutions’ debt and prevented the possible outflow of national wealth.