Robert E. Gerber is a former

United States Bankruptcy Court United States bankruptcy courts are courts created under Article I of the United States Constitution. The current system of bankruptcy courts was created by the United States Congress in 1978, effective April 1, 1984. United States bankruptcy ...

judge from the

Southern District of New York The Southern District of New York is a federal judicial district that encompasses the counties of New York (Manhattan), Bronx, Westchester, Rockland, Putnam, Orange, Dutchess, and Sullivan. Federal offices or agencies operating in the distri ...

, who presided over the

General Motors bankruptcy The 2009 General Motors Chapter 11 sale of the assets of automobile manufacturer General Motors and some of its subsidiaries was implemented through Chapter 11, Title 11, United States Code in the United States bankruptcy court for the Southern D ...

of June 2009. Gerber previously presided over the bankruptcy of

Adelphia Communications Corporation Adelphia Communications Corporation was an American cable television company with headquarters in Coudersport, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1952 by brothers Gus and John Rigas after the pair purchased a cable television franchise for US$300. ...

and Ames Department Stores. Gerber served in that office from 2000 to 2016. Judge Gerber earned a B.S. degree from

Rutgers University Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's C ...

in 1967 and a J.D. degree from

Columbia Law School Columbia Law School (CLS) is the Law school in the United States, law school of Columbia University, a Private university, private Ivy League university in New York City. The school was founded in 1858 as the Columbia College Law School. The un ...

in 1970. Prior to his appointment in 2000, he was a partner in the New York City law firm of

Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP (known as Fried Frank), is an international law firm headquartered in New York City. The firm also has offices in Washington, D.C., London, Frankfurt, and Brussels. It has more than 800 attorneys wor ...

, where he specialized in securities and commercial litigation and, thereafter, bankruptcy litigation and counseling. In 2012, a trust representing unsecured creditors of "old" GM filed a lawsuit (which came under Gerber's purview) against GM over payments made to hedge funds in 2009 in exchange for waiving of claims against GM's Canadian subsidiary. The challenge threatened (unsuccessfully) to reopen the 2009 case. Gerber presided over the bankruptcy of

LyondellBasell LyondellBasell Industries N.V is an American multinational chemical company, incorporated in the Netherlands with U.S. operations headquartered in Houston, Texas and offices in London, UK. The company is the largest licensor of polyethylene an ...

. Though the company emerged from bankruptcy in 2010, claims of

fraudulent conveyance A fraudulent conveyance or fraudulent transfer is the transfer of property to another party to prevent, hinder, or delay the collection of a debt owed by or incumbent on the party making the transfer, sometimes by rendering the transferring part ...

by the litigation trust representing

unsecured creditor An unsecured creditor is a creditor other than a preferential creditor that does not have the benefit of any security interests in the assets of the debtor. In the event of the bankruptcy of the debtor, the unsecured creditors usually obtain a '' ...

s against individual former shareholders, employees, and management of

are still pending as of early 2013. After leaving the court, Gerber joined the New York law firm of Joseph Hage Aaronson, and taught as an adjunct professor of Law at Columbia.

References

Columbia Law School alumni Living people Judges of the United States bankruptcy courts People associated with Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson Year of birth missing (living people) {{US-federal-judge-stub