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Michael D Good

Managing principal of South Bay Law Firm
Since 1994, Michael D Good – managing principal of South Bay Law Firm – has represented a wide variety of corporate debtors, creditors’ committees, individual creditors, and other parties across a broad range of industries. He has extensive experience with complex domestic and cross-border reorganisation and liquidation proceedings under the United States Bankruptcy Code, as well as with out-of-court restructurings. Email: mgood@southbaylawfirm.com / https://www.southbaylawfirm.com/

Articles by author

Transatlantic tremors: how the Serta verdict is reshaping global debt restructuring

On 7 July 2026, the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas fundamentally altered the calculus of distressed debt restructuring. In a landmark memorandum opinion, Judge Christopher Lopez ordered lenders who participated in Serta Simmons Bedding's 2020 liability management exercise (LME)1 to pay $261.13m in damages plus $142m in mandatory prejudgment interest to excluded minority lenders.2 The ruling culminates a six-year legal odyssey that began when Serta invoked an undefined "open market purchase" exception to execute an unprecedented non-pro rata uptier exchange.

Its damages calculation raises questions about its anticipated impact on concurrent LME litigation in the US and in Europe.

26 SEP 2026
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