- videocam Live Webinar with Live Q&A
- calendar_month December 11, 2025 @ 1:00 PM E.T.
- signal_cellular_alt Intermediate
- card_travel Bankruptcy
- schedule 90 minutes
Special Committees and Chapter 11 Investigations: What Courts Expect, Best Practices, Avoiding Pitfalls
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About the Course
Introduction
This CLE webinar will review the increasing importance of and best practices for using special committees to investigate insider transactions, board decisions, or other potential wrongdoing in Chapter 11 cases. The program will discuss why the use of special committees has increased, pitfalls to be avoided, and the proper role of counsel in advising them.
Description
In recent years, pre-bankruptcy transactions have come under increased scrutiny. Requiring or permitting the same insiders to investigate transactions, decisions, or other acts in which they were involved or by which they benefited creates a potential conflict of interest. To manage these conflicts and offer greater transparency, many companies are using special committees made up of independent directors.
Counsel advising special committees may need to perform many different tasks: crafting resolutions establishing committees, conducting investigations, counseling members regarding fiduciary duties, appropriate compensation arrangements, selecting advisers, advising about appropriate record keeping, and formulating and implementing strategies aimed at efficiently and effectively achieving the committee's mandate. Knowledge about conflicts of interest and entire fairness fiduciary duty litigation is essential.
Listen as this panel of attorneys experienced in representing special committees offers best practices for improving transparency, reducing litigation risk, and making complex cases more manageable for all involved, and discusses how to avoid poorly functioning committees that can multiply problems.
Presented By
Mr. Cannizzaro, III, chairs the firm's Corporate/Mergers & Acquisitions practice. He is a seasoned corporate lawyer, focusing on mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance, alternative entity issues, and securities. Mr. Cannizzaro,III, represents public and private companies and private equity sponsors in complex US and cross-border transactions, including mergers, acquisitions, investments, dispositions, spinoffs, joint ventures, energy infrastructure projects, restructuring, bankruptcy and distressed M&A, and SPACs. Beyond discrete transactions, he provides counsel to international and domestic clients in connection with their ongoing business and operations.
Mr. Grzaslewicz is a Partner in the Corporate and Commercial Litigation Groups. He is an experienced Delaware litigator focusing his practice on litigation involving corporations and other business entities formed under Delaware law. Mr. Grzaslewicz represents clients in the Delaware Court of Chancery in various business disputes. His experience includes litigating breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract, and fraud actions, as well as litigating disputes arising under Delaware’s corporate and alternative entity statutes, including control contests, demands for books and records, and demands for advancement and indemnification. Mr. Grzaslewicz also has an active practice before the Complex Commercial Litigation Division of the Delaware Superior Court, including, most recently, successfully prosecuting a post-acquisition fraud claim as first chair litigation and trial counsel, which resulted in a multi-million dollar judgment for his client.
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This 90-minute webinar is eligible in most states for 1.5 CLE credits.
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Live Online
On Demand
Date + Time
- event
Thursday, December 11, 2025
- schedule
1:00 PM E.T.
I. Special committees and pre-bankruptcy restructuring
A. What are special committees
B. Why special committees are on the rise
C. What special committees do
D. Best practices for effective special committees
E. Forming and advising a special committee
II. Involvement of special committees after bankruptcy
The panel will review these and other important issues:
- How should members of special committees be identified, vetted, and selected?
- What types of cases are best suited for special committees?
- Can special committees be disbanded before they finish their work?
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