Whats Next for Bankrupt Japan Airlines?
Posted by Anthony Lin As expected, Japan Airlines formally filed for bankruptcy protection today in Tokyo District Court. The company’s announcement of the filing listed ¥2.3 trillion ($25 billion) in liabilities, making it one of the largest restructurings in Japanese history. The company is set to shed almost 16,000 jobs, about a third of its workforce, in the process. If JAL were an American company, this would the point at which lawyers began descending on it in droves. Since it’s not an American company, we turned to one of JAL’s lawyers, Kazuhiro Yanagida, an associate at Tokyo’s Nishimura & Asahi, for some insight into what happens now. Turns out things things can be expected to play out a bit differently in Japan. In a country where most top lawyers are generalists, Yanagida has an unusually deep background in restructuring. He worked in New York for both Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton and turnaround firm Alix Partners before clerking for U.S. bankruptcy judge Samuel Bufford
