Apollo, BlackRock, Oaktree Ask Judge to Toss Altice Lawsuit
(Bloomberg) — Lenders to Altice USA Inc., including Apollo Capital Management, BlackRock Financial Management and Oaktree Capital Management, asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit accusing them of colluding to shut the company out of the US credit market.
The motion, filed late Friday in New York, argues that Altice is wrongly trying to block creditors from working together when a borrower tries to renegotiate. Courts in similar cases have said that US antitrust law does not apply, the lenders argued.
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Altice USA, now known as Optimum Communications Inc., is trying “to weaponize the antitrust laws” to gain an advantage in debt talks, the lenders said. “But antitrust law protects competition — not a borrower’s desire for leverage in renegotiating its liabilities in times of distress.”
The creditors also contend that the company wants to use “antitrust law to rewrite their credit contracts.”
The lenders want the judge to throw out the lawsuit that Optimum filed in November alleging the lenders violated federal law by entering into so-called cooperation agreements that suppressed competition among creditors. The case has put a spotlight on the increasingly common pacts, which are designed to give bondholders and loan investors greater leverage in restructurings by letting them negotiate as a bloc rather than individually.
“We brought this action to defend our legal rights, and our objective remains to protect Optimum’s ability to access competitive and fair credit markets,” the company wrote in an emailed statement to Bloomberg.
Altice USA, the US unit of billionaire Patrick Drahi’s global telecom empire, has struggled under a heavy debt load in recent years. The company recently revamped its legal advisory team, hiring law firm White & Case ahead of a potential restructuring.
The case is Optimum Communications Inc. versus Apollo Capital Management LP et al, 25-cv-9785, US District Court, Southern District of New York.
(Updates with additional detail from court filing in fourth paragraph, adds company comment in sixth paragraph)
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