{"id":15359,"date":"2026-02-07T18:51:27","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T18:51:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/borrowaccelerated.com\/?p=15359"},"modified":"2026-02-07T18:51:29","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T18:51:29","slug":"creditors-accuse-optimum-of-weaponising-antitrust-laws-to-avoid-bankruptcy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/borrowaccelerated.com\/?p=15359","title":{"rendered":"Creditors accuse Optimum of \u2018weaponising\u2019 antitrust laws to avoid bankruptcy"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Stay informed with free updates<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__content-sign-up-topic-description o3-type-body-base\"><span>Simply sign up to the <!-- -->US companies<!-- --> myFT Digest &#8212; delivered directly to your inbox.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe class=\"article__content-sign-up-iframe close\" scrolling=\"no\" id=\"signUpIframe\" data-prev-url=\"\/register\/in-article-sign-up?ft-content-uuid=9dbb4e00-6d2b-4892-a944-db6d2447edae&amp;concept-id=1248b3d3-1d4c-4454-af23-c0b4707ed412\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div id=\"article-body\">\n<p>Creditors to Optimum Communications have accused the heavily indebted telecoms group of improperly attempting to \u201cweaponise the antitrust laws\u201d in its efforts to stave off bankruptcy.<\/p>\n<p>Late on Friday, creditors asked a judge in a Manhattan federal court to dismiss an Optimum lawsuit filed in November that accused several of the world\u2019s largest asset managers of forming an illegal cartel during debt renegotiations.<\/p>\n<p>The named defendants, including Apollo Global Management, Ares Management, and BlackRock, argued in their motion that US competition laws should not apply to the Optimum creditors, who had signed a pact last year that bound each member to only negotiate a debt restructuring with Optimum as a collective unit. <\/p>\n<p>Optimum, formerly known as Altice USA and controlled by French billionaire Patrick Drahi, is languishing under a $26bn debt pile. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cOptimum received from its creditors billions of dollars in a freely competitive market,\u201d the investors\u2019 counsel at Sullivan &amp; Cromwell wrote. \u201cThe notion that antitrust law entitles Optimum to have its creditors \u2018compete\u2019 over sweetening the terms of outstanding debt defies logic.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Optimum\u2019s theory, that so-called co-operation agreements struck between creditors are illegal, has become a flashpoint in the rough and tumble $3tn US junk bond and leveraged loan market.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The investor group, which also includes Oaktree, Loomis Sayles, GoldenTree Asset Management, Prudential and JPMorgan\u2019s investment management arm, argued that their decision to co-operate remained \u201cpro-competitive\u201d. <\/p>\n<p>More than 90 per cent of Optimum\u2019s debt stack was subject to the co-operation agreement and the company\u2019s complaint lists dozens of defendants in total.<\/p>\n<p>In recent years, distressed debt companies in the US have relied on so-called creditor-on-creditor violence transactions \u2014 where competing groups of asset managers make offers of new capital to issuers \u2014 to stay afloat. Those in the losing group, however, often have their existing debt holdings pushed down in repayment priority, rendering such paper worthless.<\/p>\n<p>The Optimum creditors argued in the court filing that creditor-on-creditor violence had harmed US capital markets and should be discouraged.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c[Co-operation agreements] reduce transaction costs and the destructiveness of brinkmanship,\u201d the creditor group wrote.\u00a0It added that the agreements promote \u201cthe very mutual forbearance that can keep a borrower operating\u201d. <\/p>\n<p>The blast radius from the original Optimum complaint has extended far.<\/p>\n<p>Optimum\u2019s transactional law firm at the time of the lawsuit, Kirkland &amp; Ellis, recently resigned after Apollo, Ares and other large asset managers blamed the litigation on the powerful adviser, even as a small Washington DC boutique had been retained by Optimum to formally bring the antitrust case.<\/p>\n<p>Optimum has since hired White &amp; Case to replace Kirkland as its debt negotiation counsel.<\/p>\n<p>The FT previously reported that JPMorgan had drawn the ire of the asset managers who were upset that the world\u2019s largest bank had loaned Optimum $2bn in November in a deal that also facilitated a transfer of company assets away from existing creditors.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe brought this action to defend our legal rights, and our objective remains to protect Optimum\u2019s ability to access competitive and fair credit markets,\u201d Optimum said.<\/p>\n<p>The federal court judge overseeing the case, Jeannette Vargas, has ordered the sides to appear before her this month to determine next steps in the case.*<\/p>\n<p><em>An earlier version of this story misidentified the judge presiding in the case<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Read the full article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/9dbb4e00-6d2b-4892-a944-db6d2447edae\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" rel=\"nofollow\">here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the US companies myFT Digest &#8212; delivered directly to your inbox. Creditors to&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15360,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15359","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Creditors accuse Optimum of \u2018weaponising\u2019 antitrust laws to avoid bankruptcy | Borrow Accelerated<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the US companies myFT Digest -- delivered directly to your inbox.Creditors to Optimum Communications have\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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