The early and successful representations of Indonesia, Turkey, Peru and Costa Rica established the Firm’s reputation in the sovereign debt area. More than a dozen other nations later called upon White & Case to help them reschedule their external debt, including Bulgaria, Croatia, Gabon, Honduras, Morocco, Nigeria, Panama, Poland, Vietnam and Zaire. Many of these assignments arose at transformative moments in that country’s history. Croatia’s bank debt was renegotiated after the country achieved independence from Yugoslavia, and Vietnam’s debt was restructured following the country’s normalization of relations with the United States and its reentry into the international financial community. Although Hurlock came under fire from some commercial bankers for wresting large concessions on behalf of debtor nations, he was absolutely clear that the Firm did what was necessary to protect its clients’ interests and allow them to revive their national economies to the benefit of themselves and the Western financial system. “These beleaguered governments were essentially bankrupt,” he recalled, “so we went to war on their behalf. We got the reputation for being fairly tough because we said that most of these nations couldn’t pay the money back—ever. However, I felt it wasn’t going to benefit the world’s banks or anybody else to hold these nations to the wall until all their blood had drained from their bodies.” Hurlock became a powerful advocate on behalf of debtor nations, supporting his view with articles in the press, in speeches and, notably, in testimony at U.S. Congressional hearings. Over time, the Firm’s vigorous approach helped debtor countries achieve rescheduling terms that provided more balanced and sustainable solutions to their economic challenges. The Firm helped several countries implement restructurings by adopting the “Brady Plan” approach (named after U.S. Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady) that included debt reduction, extended repayment periods and support from the World Bank as key components. The Firm helped Costa Rica negotiate a 1990 debt restructuring that resulted in substantial levels of debt relief, including the repurchase of a significant portion of its external debt for 16 cents on the dollar. An editorial in stated that this deal “breaks the mold and gives beleaguered nations cause for hope.” The 1991 agreement between Poland and its Paris Club creditors reduced Poland’s external debt by approximately 45 percent and included several innovative features, such as limiting the amount of past due interest payable. Wall, who succeeded Hurlock as head of the Firm in 2000, believes strongly that the Firm generally, and Hurlock specifically, made an enormous contribution toward defusing a potential global crisis: “Jim dedicated himself to finding long-term solutions for those countries and remained at the forefront of the sovereign debt crisis as it unfolded.” Maddrey concurs: “This was enormously rewarding work that required a coordinated legal, financial and diplomatic effort. Our role was more than that of legal advisers; we participated in shaping policy and advocating the interests of the debtor countries.” The Firm’s success in helping sovereigns reschedule their external debt led, in many cases, to the development of enduring relationships with these clients that, in turn, led to the expansion of the number of sovereign clients and the range of services the Firm has provided to governments. Since the initial work for Indonesia in 1975, the Firm has helped more than 60 sovereigns and state-owned enterprises resolve complex and often unique legal challenges across a broad range of other activities, including capital markets financings, litigation and arbitration, international trade issues, privatizations, project finance and infrastructure development, public-private partnerships and legal matters arising from the management of sovereign wealth funds.

The leading example of this broadening process was in Indonesia. Following the successful rescheduling of the Pertamina-related debt, the central bank (Bank Indonesia) and the Ministry of Finance instructed the Firm on new loans. Pertamina set up a contracts team to deal with procurement to avoid any similar situations that had resulted in the debt rescheduling, and was also advised by White & Case. The work broadened to include Garuda, the state airline, and Krakatau Steel. Oil and gas deals, arbitration work, construction contracts and several LNG, oil refinery and petrochemical projects all followed in quick succession. Philip Stopford, one of the first two lawyers to move to Jakarta for the Firm, advised on an insurance claim arising from the failure of an Indonesian satellite to reach its correct orbit.

Broadening the practice

In effect, White & Case became the outside counsel for the government of Indonesia, a role that carried with it great responsibility but also a certain amount of power. A representative of one of two Japanese banks arranging a loan to Indonesia made the mistake during negotiations of telling Jim Hurlock to “shut up,” to the amazement of everyone in the meeting. “That was probably the only time that had ever happened to Jim,” Crozer recalls. “Later on, we found out that the entire Indonesian team from that bank had been reassigned, so Jim had the last laugh!” Closer relationships with governments provided a sound rationale for opening offices. At the time the Firm began representing Indonesia, non-Indonesian law firms were not permitted to open offices there. When the volume of the Firm’s work for Indonesia reached the level that made it impractical to handle all the work from New York, the Firm opened an office in Hong Kong in 1978, in part to put members of its Indonesia team closer to Jakarta. The office it opened in Singapore in 1983 put its lawyers even nearer to Jakarta. The Firm was able to get nearer still by posting lawyers to Jakarta, working from the offices of Bank Indonesia, that same year. The first two lawyers sent to Jakarta were Stopford and John Provine, who were joined in 1985 by Crozer and Hugh Verrier , the current head of the Firm. Other lawyers posted to Jakarta during the 1980s and 1990s included Troy Alexander, Haywood Blakemore, Ken Ellis, Peter Finlay and Maddrey, many of whom would grow into leadership positions at the Firm. As Crozer remembers, the Bank Indonesia offices arrangement was acceptable to the Indonesian authorities on the basis that the Firm could only work from those offices for Bank Indonesia and the Indonesian government, that it could not open a bank account and that the authorities could ask its lawyers to leave on half an hour’s notice.

White & Case dominated the privatization league tables for years in terms of the number and value of privatizations completed. And as the era of privatizations began to end, White & Case turned its focus to the private sector, which opened up new avenues of work. The sovereign debt work also expanded to the former Soviet countries. In 1999, for example, the Firm advised Ukraine, which involved negotiations with the IMF and private sector lenders and subsequent Paris Club negotiations involving bond restructurings. The Firm’s reputation was such that 10 years later, in Kazakhstan, White & Case was brought in to help draft a new law that facilitated the restructuring of two banks, BTA Bank and Alliance Bank. The evolution of its sovereign practice symbolizes and summarizes some of the abiding strengths of White & Case: the value of the initial contacts that opened the door; the vision to recognize the potential scope of the work; the skill to take on a huge challenge and the ability to come up with innovative answers to seemingly intractable problems; the willingness of the Firm’s lawyers to enter new countries and put to one side preconceptions; and the marketing prowess to export those skills to new markets. The dedication to building strong, broad-based relationships with the Firm’s sovereign clients resulted in the Firm establishing a preeminent sovereign practice, a position that is maintained to this day.

Many of the early mandates in Central and Eastern Europe centered around the privatization of state industries. The Firm was perfectly placed to assist. The governments of Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Russia were each looking for a law firm to help them with their privatization programs, and each of them selected White & Case. Among many other matters, the Firm advised on Russia’s first privatization, of the Bolshevik Biscuit Factory, in 1992; on the privatization of Unipetrol in the Czech Republic, following the separation of the Czech Republic from Slovakia in 1993; and on the privatization of Russia’s phone system in 1997. The sterling reputation of the Firm’s sovereign practice was one of the factors that worked in the Firm’s favor. Another was the fact that by the time the Berlin Wall fell, the Firm had helped Turkey develop its privatization law and handled the first privatization under that law. The key factors, however, were the Firm’s global resources, its commitment and ability to put its lawyers on the ground as and where necessary to achieve its clients’ objectives, and the dedication, persistence and entrepreneurial spirit of its lawyers in the region. This is best summed up by Harder, who had been in Beijing at the time of the Tiananmen Square uprising in 1989 and was keen to move to Europe once the Berlin Wall had come down. “A group of us said, ‘Let’s go and build the new Europe.’ And we did, just a little bit.”

Jim Hurlock

Jim Hurlock was born in Chicago but raised in Cleveland. He graduated in 1955 from Princeton University, where he received the Pyne Prize, and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University for the next two years. He then attended Harvard Law School, graduating in 1959, and joined White & Case the same year. As someone with evident international interests, Hurlock was given responsibility for a major project in India as a young associate, and then sent to the Paris office as an associate in 1963.

Hurlock also recognized early on the value of having offices with strong local capability in core jurisdictions, providing clients with a complete service for their cross-border requirements, rather than having to use a variety of local law firms. In the early days of his leadership, Hurlock was instrumental in three domestic initiatives to modernize the Firm: scrapping an unfunded pension plan and setting up a properly funded scheme; changing the basis on which partners were compensated from a lockstep to a performance-based structure; and bringing the New York offices into one building in 1984 at 1155 Avenue of the Americas in midtown Manhattan.