State of Distressed Debt: Ellias on Reorganizations’ Global Bazaar

“If there’s kind of a squeamishness about forum shopping in the US, there’s a little...it’s just overseas, there’s none at all,” observed Harvard Law Professor Jared Ellias. “There’s a great deal of pride and interest in building...an insolvency system that is equal and in some ways more useful than what they have in the United States.” Ellias sat down with Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Negisa Balluku and Phil Brendel to discuss his new paper, “The Global Law of Debt,” co-authored with Narine Lalafaryan. Ellias traces how the historical entanglement of the New York and London debt markets has evolved into a highly competitive, globalized ecosystem where borrowers now forum-shop across borders to maximize flexibility and bypass traditional constraints like Chapter 11’s absolute-priority rule. The conversation dives into the export of aggressive liability management exercises (LMEs), the implementation of hybrid “Frankenstein” debt documents and how foreign-court systems relish taking market share from the US. The podcast concludes (1:05:40) with BI’s Noel Hebert joining Negisa and Phil to discuss the latest developments in First Brands Group, Optimum Communications, QVC Group and Trinseo.

Link to referenced paper: https://bankruptcyroundtable.law.harvard.edu/2026/03/24/the-global-law-of-debt/