Gabrielle Fromer

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Gabrielle Fromer is a litigation associate in Herrick’s Restructuring & Finance Litigation Group, where she focuses her practice on bankruptcy and financial restructuring, complex commercial litigation, real estate disputes, and white collar criminal defense and investigations.

Gabrielle has done substantial pro bono work and helped to bring The Door's Special Immigrant Juvenile Status Project to Herrick, assisting undocumented youth achieve this status in Family Court and later petition U.S. Customs and Immigration. Additionally, Gabrielle is an active contributor to the City Bar Justice Center’s COVID-19 Small Business Legal Clinic, advising small business owners on real estate and bankruptcy related issues.

Prior to joining Herrick, Gabrielle worked as an Assistant District Attorney in the Trial Division of the Bronx County District Attorney’s Office where she conducted misdemeanor trials and presented felony matters to the grand jury.

While attending law school, Gabrielle served as the Senior Symposium Editor of the Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law, and worked as a student defense attorney through Georgetown’s Criminal Justice Clinic. As a law student, Gabrielle held internships with the New York County District Attorney’s Office and the Department of Justice. Additionally, Gabrielle summered as a judicial intern for U.S. Magistrate Judge Kevin Nathaniel Fox of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

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Federal district court judge Paul Gardephe recently spared Keleil Isaza Tuzman from additional jail time, despite Tuzman’s December 2017 convictions for securities and mail fraud, the latest twist in the long, strange saga of KIT Digital. Tuzman was the founder and former CEO of KIT Digital Inc., a publicly traded software startup that offered video management products, but which ended up bankrupt and is now called Piksel Inc. The US Attorney sought a prison term of 17.5-22 years for Tuzman.

Tuzman, and co-defendant Omar Amanat, who was sentenced to five years in jail and fined $175,000, were convicted on multiple counts of manipulating the stock price for KIT Digital and for defrauding investors in a hedge fund known as Maiden Capital.
Continue Reading Judge Spares Ex-CEO of Bankrupt KIT Digital from Additional Jail Time

Brooks Brothers’ minority shareholders and unsecured creditors, TAL Apparel Ltd. (“TAL Apparel”) and its subsidiary Castle Apparel Ltd. (“Castle”), recently brought an action against the men’s retailer’s former owners, the Del Vecchio family. TAL Apparel and Castle allege bad faith and more than $100 million in damages for losses arising from…

In an anomalous decision by the Bankruptcy Court in the District of Kansas, the court declined to enforce the voting provisions in subordination agreements that allowed the senior creditor to vote on behalf of a group of subordinated creditors. Reversing a trend of enforcing express voting restrictions in intercreditor agreements, the court invalidated the voting provision at issue, yet ultimately barred the subordinated creditors from participating in the confirmation process entirely. The decision bucks the trend of enforcing intercreditor agreements that limit the voting rights of junior creditors, but nevertheless, holds that such creditors can be precluded from exercising other rights to participate in a chapter 11 case.

The Debtor—Fencepost Productions Inc., a designer and distributor of outdoor clothing, together with its related debtors—filed for chapter 11 in late 2019. In 2018, the Debtors’ principal creditor, Associated Bank, N.A. (“Associated”), made a $14 million secured loan. At the same time, a group of unsecured creditors, BMS Management, Inc. and related individuals (collectively the “BMS Group”), entered into subordination agreements with Associated, under which Associated had the right to vote the claims of the BMS Group.
Continue Reading Voting Rights Provisions in Intercreditor Agreements May Not Be Enforceable As Expected

Belk Inc., a national privately-owned department store chain, just completed a $450 million debt restructuring in less than 24 hours! U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Marvin Isgur confirmed the plan the morning of the First Day Hearing despite the U.S. Trustee’s concerns about adequate notice. The Debtors’ prepackaged plan became effective hours after it was confirmed by the Court.

Belk argued that the plan must be confirmed quickly because the company had no cash reserves and no committed DIP financing. The Court agreed with the need for a speedy plan to protect thousands of jobs and hundreds of stores from closing. The prepackaged restructuring plan was supported by nearly all the creditors. The U.S. Trustee objected to hasty plan confirmation because the interested parties would be rushed to evaluate, respond, or object to the plan.
Continue Reading In and Out of Bankruptcy in One Day: Record-Setting Prepackaged Restructuring Plan Confirmed Within Hours of Chapter 11 Filing

On January 15, 2021, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in City of Chicago v. Fulton that a secured party in possession of a debtor’s collateral does not violate the automatic stay by passively retaining possession after a debtor commences a bankruptcy case. When a debtor files a bankruptcy case, the Bankruptcy Code protects the debtor by imposing an automatic stay on efforts to collect prepetition debts or “any act . . . to exercise control over property” of the bankruptcy estate.
Continue Reading Recent Supreme Court Ruling Provides Important Protection for Secured Creditors

The general rule is that when a corporation or other business entity buys the assets of another entity, it does not assume the liabilities of the seller. But in New Nello Operating Co., LLC v. CompressAir, 19A-CC-603 (Ind. Ct. App. March 2, 2020), the court applied the de facto merger exception and held the buyer company (“New Nello”), which had acquired the assets through a foreclosure under the Uniform Commercial Code (“UCC”), responsible for the seller’s (“Old Nello”) debt. The facts illustrate why the court imposed liability on New Nello and provide guidance on how to avoid this result.
Continue Reading Distress Buyer in UCC Foreclosure Sale Held Liable for Seller’s Debts Under De Facto Merger Doctrine

In Rodriguez v. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the United States Supreme Court ruled on February 25, 2020, that a $4.1 million tax refund belonged to the bankruptcy estate of a failed Colorado bank’s parent company, United Western Bancorp, Inc. (“UWBI”), rather than to its subsidiary, United Western Bank (the “Bank”). The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (“FDIC”) is the receiver for the Bank.
Continue Reading The Importance of Clear Tax Allocation Agreements