Jon Kibbe

Jon Kibbe is a recognized authority on evolving legal issues in the global credit markets, including the loan market. He represents banks, investment banks, hedge funds, broker dealers and other financial institutions that buy and sell loans, claims and other credit products in the high-yield debt, and credit derivatives markets. Jon advises his clients on the transactional and regulatory aspects of those markets and develops practical solutions to novel trading and regulatory issues arising from transactions involving complex credit products. He is a senior counsel in the New York office of Crowell & Moring.

He regularly advises clients participating in the market for troubled and non-performing loans and financial claims, providing transactional, compliance and regulatory guidance to clients that originate, restructure and trade commercial and industrial bank loans, distressed bonds, portfolios of real estate loans, claims arising from terminated derivative transactions, and other related obligations. He has helped clients create trading solutions and new markets for illiquid credit assets, establish trading desks to support those markets, implement strategic trading programs, and develop firm-wide compliance and best-practice initiatives.

Jon counsels clients engaged in event-driven acquisitions, debt restructurings, and innovative financing transactions. He has helped develop and engineer new financial instruments, including the loan credit default swap, and new applications of securitization structures, including vehicles formed to purchase and restructure distressed bank loans. 

He is a frequent speaker on legal, regulatory, and compliance issues arising in the fixed income markets. Jon regularly writes on topics of interest to active participants in the evolving markets for bank loans, claims, and related credit derivatives products.

Jon has been recognized by New York Super Lawyers Magazine in the areas of securities and corporate finance (2008-2020).

Prior to joining the firm, he was a founding partner of Richards Kibbe & Orbe LLP, a boutique law firm that focused on financial markets.

Affiliations

Representative Matters

• Represented an investment bank modifying a protocol for trading loans by incorporating trade custom and best practices evolving in response to recent case law developments.
• Advised a hedge fund collateralizing an emergency financing with illiquid financial assets, including par and distressed loans and future commitments to buy and sell loan products.
• Counseled an investment adviser seeking to harmonize loan trading activities and regulatory and compliance policies across a platform of CLO's, credit opportunity funds, and private equity funds.
• Represented a consortium of investment banks and trade associations in collaborative efforts to design and document the standard North American and European loan credit default swap products, and the related framework used for loan settlement into credit default swaps in connection with the ISDA “Big Bang” protocol.
• Counseled a trade association in developing trading initiatives and best practices designed to increase transparency and liquidity in the U.S. secondary bank loan market in response to Dodd-Frank.
• Advised an investment bank seeking to resolve a series of complex trading disputes and contentious matters through the novel use of structured distributions derived from a portfolio total return swap.
• Represented buy-side and sell-side clients in the trading and investing of tens of billions of dollars of insolvency, litigation, and other claims in North America, Europe and Asia (debtors included Visa/MasterCard, CDS antitrust litigation defendants, Lehman Brothers, TXU, American Airlines, McDermott, General Motors, Icelandic banks).