Areas of Practice
- Business & Financial Restructuring
- Commercial Litigation, Insolvency, & Creditors' Rights
- Corporate, Securities, & Finance
- Derivatives and Credit Default Swaps Litigation & Restructuring Team
- Litigation
- Securities & Directors/Officers Litigation
- Securitization
- Subprime & Credit Crisis Team
- Troubled Asset Investigations, Enforcement & Litigation Team
- Troubled Asset Task Force
- Worldwide Arbitration & Dispute Resolution
Languages
- Spanish
Education
- Harvard Law School, J.D., 1977, Senior Editor, Harvard Law Review
- University of Illinois, A.B., 1974, Bronze Tablet Scholar (first in graduating class)
Bar & Court Admissions
- District of Columbia
- New York
- US District Court for the District of Columbia
- US District Court for the Southern District of New York
- US Courts of Appeal for the District of Columbia, Second, Fourth, Seventh, and Eleventh Circuits
Filiberto Agusti
Partner
1330 Connecticut Avenue, NWWashington DC 20036
TEL: 202.429.6428
FAX: 202.429.3902
Filiberto Agusti is a partner with Steptoe & Johnson LLP, where he has practiced law for over 29 years. Mr. Agusti has represented creditors in many nationally significant bankruptcies, with extensive experience in bankruptcy litigation and negotiating bankruptcy arrangements. He is listed among only about 40 lawyers in all of the United States in the Guide to the World’s Leading Insolvency & Restructuring Lawyers.
Mr. Agusti is prominent in representing financial institutions in major insolvencies. Significant representations include that of AIG in the J.A. Jones Companies proceedings, the largest general contractor filing to date, involving over 200 incomplete projects. Mr. Agusti represented the surety syndicate in the Guy F. Atkinson Co. bankruptcy, developing innovative DIP financing and asset acquisitions. He represented financial institutions in the Washington Group, Inc. reorganization, the largest construction bankruptcy in 2001, which entailed provision of interim bonding facilities. Mr. Agusti also represented the insurers' group in the pre-pack bankruptcy of Morrison Knudsen Corporation.
Mr. Agusti has played a central role in bankruptcies involving large pension plan liabilities. He has represented the different fiduciaries for the defined benefit plans in the United Air Lines, Delta Air Lines, and Northwest Airlines bankruptcies. This involved complex issues relating to the priority of billion of dollars in unpaid plan contributions. He has been counsel in similar proceedings involving pension liabilities, including the J.A. Jones, LTV, and Wheeling-Pittsburgh reorganizations and is currently insolvency counsel to the American Airlines pilots’ union.
Mr. Agusti has also been active in other major reorganizations. Among these is his representation of the Cooperative Utility Trusts, the largest unsecured creditors in the reorganization of Cajun Electric Power Cooperative. The Trusts successfully negotiated assumption of over $900 million in claims by the US government. He also represented AIG in the bankruptcy of Horizon Natural Resources, the fourth largest mining operator in the United States. AIG faced substantial potential liability from surface mining reclamation bonds, but negotiated a satisfactory plan of reorganization involving the transfer of all Horizon assets with arrangements for full mine reclamation. He is also counsel to Zurich’s Fidelity & Deposit Company in the Agway, Inc. proceedings, where F&D provided bonds to Agway’s workmen’s compensation insurers. He was counsel to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, a turbine manufacturer, in the proceedings of National Energy Group. MHI was party to a multi-billion dollar contract to supply turbines to a series of electric generation projects and NEG’s largest non-bank creditor.
