Peter Borowitz retired as a partner of Debevoise in 2007. He is now active as a mediator in major commercial disputes, with particular emphasis on disputes arising in domestic and cross-border bankruptcies and out-of-court restructurings.
Mr. Borowitz joined Debevoise in 1978 and became a partner in 1986. He received his A.B. summa cum laude from Harvard College in 1974 and his J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1978, where he was a member of the Harvard Law Review and a recipient of the Sears Prize.
Before his retirement, Mr. Borowitz was a member of the firm’s Bankruptcy & Restructuring Group. Legal 500 United States (2007), Chambers USA (2007), PLC Which Lawyer? Yearbook (2007) and Chambers Global (2005) identified Mr. Borowitz as a leader in bankruptcy law. While his career initially focused on the representation of debtors in bankruptcies and workouts (such as Chrysler, Western Union, and Baldwin United), in later years he primarily represented institutional lenders and other creditors in domestic and cross-border restructurings in and out of court.
His major cases in the United States included representation of creditors of Orion Pictures, TWA, Eastern Air Lines, Continental Airlines, Enron, USGen, Calpine, Kmart, Crown Pacific, Oregon Arena, Dulles Greenway, Massey Ferguson and Reading & Bates. He was also involved in numerous cross-border cases such as Sea Containers, Parmalat Canada, LI Hooker, AeroMexico, Mexicana, Kvaerner, and Burmeister and Wain. He often advised institutional lenders in connection with complex leveraged-lease and project-finance transactions.
Mr. Borowitz is the former chairman of the Executory Contracts and Avoiding Powers Subcommittees of the American Bar Association’s Business Bankruptcy Committee. He is the author of “Waiving Subrogation Rights and Conjuring Up Demons in Response to Deprizio,” 45 Business Lawyer 2151 (1990); “A New Twist on Twist Cap: Invalidating a Preferential Letter of Credit in In re Air Conditioning,” 103 Banking Law Journal 368 (1986); “Working Out with the Government: The Chrysler Loan Guarantee Program,” Journal of Law and Commerce (1984); and “Real Property Foreclosure as a Fraudulent Conveyance: Proposals for Solving the Durrett Problem,” 38 Business Lawyer 1605 (1983).