Client: Plymouth Rubber Company, Inc.

Scenario: Plymouth Rubber Company, Inc., a 100-year-old Boston-area manufacturer and supplier of rubber and vinyl products to a broad range of markets such as the automotive and utilities industries, experienced many business successes throughout the 1990s. By 2003, however, a business downturn had occurred primarily due to low-cost foreign competition, prompting Plymouth Rubber to develop a strategy to send its manufacturing offshore. In the midst of executing this strategy, a complex lien priority dispute erupted between the company's secured lenders and the PBGC, forcing the company into Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July 2005.

Value added: Throughout the bankruptcy proceedings, Burns & Levinson lead attorney Victor Bass provided expertise dealing with a host of legal issues, including the priority dispute among four different secured creditors, and issues raised by the open hostility of the principal bank in the case. A major concern occurred when Delphi Corp., a spinoff of General Motors and Plymouth Rubber's biggest customer, itself filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in October 2005. Delphi's impending bankruptcy filing threatened to disrupt Plymouth Rubber's cash flow, which could have put an end to Plymouth Rubber immediately. Instead, Burns & Levinson was integral in negotiating a payment plan with Delphi that actually improved Plymouth Rubber's cash situation.

Despite the maze of legal challenges, Plymouth Rubber Company emerged from bankruptcy on Aug. 31, 2006, in what proved to be one of the largest and most complex bankruptcy cases in this jurisdiction.

Considering the dark cloud that hovered over Plymouth Rubber during bankruptcy proceedings, the case was a major success in that 75 distribution and sales workers will keep their jobs when manufacturing is phased out at the Massachusetts location, unsecured creditors will receive an agreed dividend, and many supplier and customer relationships have been preserved.

Maurice J. Hamilburg, president and CEO of Plymouth Rubber Company, complimented the work of Bass of Burns & Levinson. "Burns & Levinson did a very good job of navigating a complex process," said Hamilburg. "Victor Bass was very effective in court and also in analyzing a difficult situation and pulling together creditor support for a settlement that benefited all parties."

This complex case involved not only bankruptcy proceedings but crossed over into many other areas of law such as finance, real estate, corporate, tax, pension and environmental. Several attorneys from the firm were involved in making this case a success.

The primary attorney team for this complex case was:
Bankruptcy and Litigation: Victor Bass (lead attorney), William V. Sopp, Diane A.D. Noël, Lauren E. Darcy
Financing: Frank A. Segall
Real Estate: Donald E. Vaughan, Christopher M. Addesa