Cleary Gottlieb has served as regular counsel to pulp and paper companies around the world and has extensive experience with transactions in the industry. The firm has many years of experience and a comprehensive understanding of the industry and its specific business and legal issues across jurisdictions.

Given the global nature of pulp and paper industry, clients rely on the firm’s network of 16 closely integrated offices on four continents. With clients in Asia, North America, South America and Europe, Cleary lawyers regularly represent parties on an array of corporate, environmental, regulatory and dispute resolution matters. We bring a cross-border perspective to issues including transaction structures for mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, project financings, and international debt and equity offerings.

Notable Experience

  • The ad hoc creditors committee of Fibria (formerly Aracruz Celulose S.A.) in the restructuring of over $3 billion of derivative and bilateral bank debt.

  • Stora Enso Oyj in the leveraged sale of Stora Enso North America to NewPage, a portfolio company of Cerberus Capital Management, as well as in its split-off of Corenso. We also represented Stora Enso Oyj in its previous €4 billion acquisition of Consolidated Papers Inc.

  • The Anglo-French paper group Arjo Wiggins Appleton in several matters, including winning an appeal before the European Court of First Instance in a dispute over a fine imposed for alleged price-fixing and market-sharing in the carbonless paper sector.

  • Shanghai-based Sateri International in the $350 million project financing for the expansion of the Bahia Pulp Mill in Brazil.

  • Ahlstrom Corporation in various matters, including its €200 million IPO of ordinary shares on the Helsinki Stock Exchange.

  • Zellstoff Stendal in its more than €1 billion financing of a pulp mill—one of the largest industrial project financings in Germany at that time.

  • Copamex, Mexico's leading producer of paper products, in its expansion of a strategic partnership with European paper company Svenska Cellulosa Aktiebolaget.

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