The August bankruptcy filing of Barneys New York marked the downfall of a beloved luxury retailer. Within months, with Kirkland & Ellis and Katten Muchin Rosenman leading restructuring efforts, the company known for catapulting up-and-coming designers into the mainstream closed 15 of its 22 stores and announced that the rest would shutter, too. But emerging from the brand’s liquidation was a valuable asset, according to an analysis from the American Lawyer. It wasn’t the inventory — luxury goods selling at steep discounts — or real estate, which had become an ever-greater burden as rents rose. Instead, it was Barneys’s intellectual property, which was purchased at the beginning of November for $271 million by Authentic Brands, the company that also owns the IP of other ill-fated retailers such as “tween” clothier Aérpostale, shoe store Nine West and <em>Sports Illustrated</em>. “The IP is an enormous consequence in the way a business is run today,” said Alan Behr, who chairs Phillips Nizer’s fashion practice in addition to being a partner in the firm’s corporate and business law department and intellectual property practice. He is also editor-in-chief of the firm’s fashion law blog. “[IP] is the goodwill pertinent to the trademarks — and it can be the largest item when things are sold off.” As high-profile retail restructurings have flooded the nation’s bankruptcy courts in recent years, IP in many cases ends up being a valuable, sought-after asset — and the Big Law firms handling these high-dollar cases are tapping their experienced IP attorneys to navigate this element of the restructuring process.
