Depuis près d’un demi siècle, Cleary Gottlieb a toujours été à la pointe du droit de l’aviation – depuis notre représentation de la compagnie américaine pionnière dans le transport transocéanique de personnes et de marchandises jusqu’à notre rôle dans la consolidation et la restructuration actuelle de cette industrie. L’aviation est un secteur versatile, mais notre engagement indéfectible pour toujours offrir une représentation de qualité nous a permis d’étendre notre activité pour inclure des clients basés dans près de 20 pays.

Nos avocats spécialisés dans les divers domaines du droit travaillent en coopération pour conseiller nos clients sur une variété de questions à travers le monde, notamment : privatisations de compagnies aériennes et d’aéroports publics; achats et financement d’appareils; mise en place de stock options; fusions et acquisitions; conseils en droit de la concurrence lors de transactions et en rapport avec des allégations de pratiques anticoncurrentielles; émissions d’obligations et de titres de capital; transactions sécurisées; introductions en bourse; négociation d’alliances entre compagnies; renforcement de l’accès international aux aéroports; accords de transfert de technologie; négociations et litiges relatifs au droit du travail; contentieux et arbitrages ; faillite et restructuration.

Practice highlights include:

• Counsel in over $11 billion in offerings by participants in the airline industry segment.
  
  
• Counsel to Highstar Capital in its acquisition of a 25 percent stake in London City Airport from Global Infrastructure Partners.
  
  
• Counsel to Aeroports de Paris in its €1.3 billion IPO.
  
  
• Regular counsel to Italy’s flagship airline Alitalia - Linee Aeree Italiane including in recent representations such as its 2006 €1billion capital increase—a key element in the Italian government's rescue package for the troubled airline—and in Alitalia’s action in the European Court of First Instance seeking to annul the July 2001 European Commission decision to authorize State Aid conditionally.
  
  
• Counsel to Alenia Aeronautica, subsidiary of Finmeccanica, in its dual joint-venture structure with Sukhoi Civil Aircraft Corp. (SCAC) for the development, marketing, sales and after-sales support of the Superjet 100, a new mid-range civilian aircraft -- the most important industrial partnership between European and Russian companies in the civil aviation sector to date.
  
  
• Counsel to Travelport/Galileo, one of the three major computer reservation systems (which has since merged with Worldspan), with respect to a number of merger control, antitrust, and regulatory matters.
  
  
• Counsel to Airline Tariff Publishing Company, a joint venture of U.S. and non-U.S. carriers that disseminates fare information worldwide to computer reservations systems, airlines and travel agents, in the largest antitrust class-action price fixing suit ever brought, and in a separate action by the U.S. Department of Justice alleging tacit collusion among U.S. airlines to use ATP as a mechanism to manipulate air fares.
  
  
• Counsel in the IPO of Panamanian airline Copa, one of the first Panamanian companies to be listed on the NYSE, and in the subsequent SEC-registered follow-on offerings.
  
  
• Counsel to Continental Airlines in a broad range of corporate and financing activities, including the issuance of equity and secured and unsecured debt securities, the renegotiation of various loan agreements, litigations and e-commerce matters.
  
  
• Counsel to Gate Gourmet in its CHF 850 million covenant lite refinancing.
  
  
• Counsel to British Airways on various antitrust matters, including successfully obtaining the closure of an investigation by the UK Office of Fair Trading into the airline’s corporate discounting practices and previously in the EC Commission’s approval of its strategic alliance with Iberia and GB Airways.
  
  
• Counsel to the Ministry of Communications and Transportation of Mexico in the privatization of the Mexican airport sector, including the SEC-registered IPOs of Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacífico, Grupo Aeroportuario del Centro Norte and Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste. 
  
  
• Counsel to the Belgian State and Belgian institutional shareholders in the €735 million sale of a 70% interest in Brussels International Airport Company.
  
  
• We are currently active or have recently been involved in over 10 airline restructurings and bankruptcies worldwide.