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Kirkland & Ellis has quit as legal counsel to telecoms group Altice USA after pressure from top US private capital firms, according to two people directly familiar with the situation.
The investors were angered by a novel antitrust lawsuit filed last November by Altice USA, which alleged that they had formed an illegal cartel in a debt refinancing negotiation.
Altice USA had sued several creditors, including Apollo Global Management, Ares Management and BlackRock, in late 2025 alleging that they violated US antitrust law by signing a so-called “co-operation agreement”.
The pact allegedly prevented any signatories, which included more than 90 per cent of Altice’s creditors, from agreeing a bond exchange with the company without the approval of other creditors.
Altice USA described the pact as a “classic illegal cartel”, citing violations of US federal and New York state law. A court hearing is to be held this month in New York to determine the next steps in the case.
The lawsuit from Altice USA, now known as Optimum Communications, was filed by Kellogg Hansen, a Washington DC boutique law firm.
However, the creditors believed Kirkland had been behind the lawsuit after lawyers from the Chicago-based firm, which dominates assignments for distressed debt and bankruptcy situations, had publicly mused for years about challenging co-operation agreements.
“Kirkland does not sue clients and did not here,” Kirkland said in a statement to the FT in November.
The FT previously reported that firms such as Ares Management, which were both creditors of Optimum and long-standing clients of Kirkland, had complained to the law firm about its alleged role in the antitrust lawsuit.
Kirkland’s top executives had held meetings in recent weeks with private capital firms to soothe feelings over the lawsuit, according to people familiar with the matter.
Among the demands made by those money managers was that Kirkland exit the Optimum assignment, according to people familiar with the matter.
Optimum, backed by French billionaire Patrick Drahi, had already started interviewing replacement law firms to lead the ongoing debt renegotiations, according to a person close to the company.
The FT has previously reported on Kirkland’s dominant position in both formal bankruptcy assignments as well as so-called “liability management” deals, where companies raise new capital outside of bankruptcy court.
One person close to Altice USA noted that the sheer amount of capital markets and M&A fees that Kirkland generated from private capital firms forced it to accede to their demands to resign from the Optimum assignment.
Kirkland and Optimum declined to comment. The Wall Street Journal first reported Kirkland’s withdrawal from the Altice USA assignment.