Experience

Alan's practice includes the representation of:

• Trustees;
• Creditors’ committees;
• Secured creditors;
• Unsecured creditors;
• Debtors in Chapter 11 proceedings; and
• Creditors in Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 proceedings.

Creditors’ Rights

He has served as lead counsel to creditors in a number of cases involving hundreds of millions of dollars of debt.  He represented the creditors’ committee in one of the largest Chapter 11 bankruptcies ever filed in Maryland, Combined Properties, Inc., a property management firm for 43 shopping centers; as a result of his efforts, his clients recovered 100 percent of the money the debtor owed them.  Similarly, he successfully represented a major lender in the Chapter 11 bankruptcy of Sunterra, a real estate investment trust that developed and owned timeshare properties internationally.

Alan has represented creditors’ committees in numerous other large Chapter 11 cases involving companies in a variety of industries, including an industrial painting contractor, a box company, a book publisher, a warehousing and distribution company, a shipyard, a retail chain of furniture stores, and a medical equipment manufacturer.

He is currently representing creditors’ committees in several regional residential homebuilder cases.  He serves as co-counsel to the creditors’ committee in the Chapter 11 case of TMST, Inc., formerly known as Thornburg Mortgage, Inc., a publicly traded, New Mexico-based subprime lender.

Alan is also currently serving as Receiver for Trans Healthcare, Inc. (“THI”) and more than 40 affiliated companies.  THI owned and/or operated a chain of nursing homes in Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. In connection with this receivership, he has been involved in extensive litigation matters in Florida that have spawned more than 20 reported decisions from the United States Bankruptcy Court in Tampa, Florida.  Despite the fact that THI has nearly $15 Million in creditors, a significant distribution is projected for all creditors.

Debtor Representation

Alan's debtor representations have included a psychiatric hospital, a chain of 75 primary care physician practices, a stevedoring company, a company that invents and manufactures medical equipment, and a sports management company.  He currently represents Montgomery County, Maryland’s largest taxi company in its reorganization; he has fashioned an innovative reorganization plan by which the company will sell its taxi licenses directly to drivers, thus shifting the insurance burden away from the company and generating revenue to repay creditors in full plus interest.

Most recently, he represented a plastic container manufacturer in the sale of its business through a Chapter 11 proceeding.  The company was initially valued at $7-$10 million, but eventually sold for more than $26 million.  He handled this complex case, including termination of both the debtor’s pension and ESOP plans, in a six-month period and was able to secure full payment to all creditors.  Based on Alan’s work, the Ohio Chapter of the Turnaround Management Association recognized him with its "2015 Transaction of the Year" award and the Global M&A Network selected Tydings as a finalist in “Small Mid Markets Cross Border Distressed M&A Deal of the Year” at its 2015 Turnaround Atlas Awards, which honors the global restructuring and turnaround communities.

An experienced appellate attorney, he also represented a high-profile client in In re Solomon, 67 F.3d 1128 (4th Cir. 1995), an historically significant appellate case that established that individual retirement accounts are exempt under Maryland law and do not constitute disposable income under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.