Will Your Shipment Come In? How Bankruptcy Affects Transportation Issues on Water and Land

Ilana Volkov is a member in the firm’s Bankruptcy and Corporate Restructuring Department. She has over 25 years of experience representing debtors, unsecured creditors' committees, pre-petition and DIP lenders, purchasers of assets, commercial landlords and other contract parties, shareholders, and other parties-in-interest in all aspects of complex business reorganizations, distressed M&A transactions and related litigation. Ilana also has extensive experience in cross-border insolvency proceedings.

John is a partner in the Business Restructuring, Creditors' Rights & Bankruptcy practice group and is based in the firm's Atlanta office. He concentrates his practice in the areas of bankruptcy and insolvency law, including insolvency-related commercial litigation in both state and federal courts.

John represents secured lenders, debtors/borrowers, official committees of unsecured creditors, landlords, and other parties in interest in relation to, among other things, bankruptcy cases, receivership litigation, workouts, restructurings and state court foreclosures and confirmation proceedings. John frequently lectures on bankruptcy and commercial litigation topics before bar and trade groups, as well as continuing legal education programs.

Hon. Kevin R. Huennekens is a judge for the United States bankruptcy court, Eastern District of Virginia. He was appointed to the court on September 11, 2006, and his term will expire on September 10, 2020. Judge Huennekens' career markers include: partner with Kutak Rock LLP, panel trustee for the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia from 1988 to 2006 and co-editor of the Virginia CLE publication Bankruptcy Practice in Virginia in 2004 and 2008.

Kevin received his undergraduate degree from the College of William and Mary and his J.D. from the Marshall-Wythe School of Law at the College of William & Mary.

Mr. Friedberg draws on his extensive and distinctive experience in operations, finance, technology, sales, and marketing to guide and advise businesses of all sizes, including publicly traded companies, privately held businesses, startups, and non-profit organizations. He has held numerous positions as an owner, employee, or interim executive working with companies to effect change. His expertise has been developed through years of direct, hands-on work in investment banking, venture capital, software application development, supply chain management, financial analysis, strategic consulting, and fundraising, to name a few areas. In particular, Mr. Friedberg’s 16 years of experience in the technology arena enables him to bring a unique perspective to all of his consulting engagements.

Mr. Friedberg has the innate ability to quickly and efficiently identify and analyze a company’s needs, drill down to the core business issues, and apply effective solutions. He has consulted with hundreds of companies across various industries, including healthcare, transportation, automotive, financial services, manufacturing, petroleum, pharmaceutical, real estate, retail, technology, telecommunications, and utilities, among others.

Now Mr. Friedberg serves in a variety of interim executive positions on behalf of GGG clients: CEO, COO, CFO, CTO, CIO, CRO, director of reorganization, board of advisors, board of directors, financial advisor and business consultant. He has successfully turned around distressed businesses, negotiated forbearances with lenders, renegotiated leases with landlords, executed settlements with vendors and suppliers, increased sales, sold businesses, raised capital, integrated information systems, and provided growth plans for numerous companies.

Over the last 6 years, Mr. Friedberg has been entrenched in the transportation and logistics industry, in which he has engaged in more than 40 different engagements, helping companies’ large and small work through their financial, operational, technical and sales issues. The extensive network developed as a result of this sector expertise allows him to manage through the most obscure to complex problems facing the industry. Engagements include work for both asset and non-asset based companies domestic and international.

Recent engagements include active rolls as financial advisor to 2 different community hospitals navigating through the Chapter 11 where Mr. Friedberg leveraged his prior experience in the healthcare industry.

Prior to joining GGG in 2003, Mr. Friedberg was the co-owner and vice president of BiT Group Inc., a full-service strategic consulting and Web development professional services firm in Boston. While there, he grew the business from a small regional consulting firm to an organization that was ranked the 155th fastest-growing company (out of the top 500) in 2001 by Inc. Magazine, servicing such companies as Dell, Cisco, Fidelity, and Marsh.

Prior to BiT Group, Mr. Friedberg spent 6 years in healthcare informatics. There he worked with public and private sector payers, providers and patient networks. Coming from a family of physicians, Mr. Friedberg employed his overlapping understanding of the personal, economic and political factions that drive healthcare policy. Mr. Friedberg was involved in building sales teams, interfacing technology through partnership agreements and driving adoption of cost cutting processes in the healthcare industry. His work offered him the chance to speak with thousands of physicians throughout the country.

Prior to his work in Boston, Mr. Friedberg helped grow various technology companies, starting with his work at Atlanta-based Harbinger Corp., which went through a successful public offering in 1995. While at Harbinger, he worked with all levels of supply chain management.

Prior to his work in the technology sector, Mr. Friedberg was the founder of the Corporate Finance Institute and worked for Howard, Lawson & Co., a prestigious Philadelphia investment banking and venture capital firm. There he consulted with various companies on capital raising, mergers and acquisitions, and IPOs. Mr. Friedberg started working as a serial entrepreneur which allowed him to apply hands-on experience while funding his education.

This extensive background in a wide variety of business sectors has allowed Mr. Friedberg to develop an extensive network of business contacts in Atlanta, Boston, New York, and Philadelphia.