• Perez was quickly handed mega cases including Sunnova, Saks, and QVC
• Colleagues praise Perez’s work ethic, expertise, and docket management skills
• Perez’s appointment maintains Southern Texas’ reputation as a top bankruptcy venue

 

Judge Alfredo Perez, entering his third year sitting on the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas bench, quickly found himself awash in mega cases as an ascendant district became a premier bankruptcy venue.

Perez, who declined to comment for this profile, seemingly skipped the frying pan directly into the fire, with cases including Northvolt AB, H-Food Holdings, Sunnova Energy International, and this year alone major retailers Saks Global Enterprises and QVC Group (QVCG). Just this month, he approved a controversial Chapter 11 plan for QVCG which objectors already appealed, sure to become one of his signature cases.

While Perez’s colleague on the bench and fellow Weil, Gotshal & Manges alumnus Judge Christopher Lopez is a relative veteran, the two hold a collective 10 years of bench experience thus far. Judges Marvin Isgur and David Jones, meanwhile, held more than three decades and spent much of it watching Southern Texas grow into a premier district in the country. It now stands alongside Southern New York and Delaware as one of the busiest both by volume and size, notwithstanding a transitory and precipitous drop in the wake of Jones’ ignominious departure.

Since his appointment in July 2024, Perez has been entrusted with some of the messiest, biggest cases bankruptcy has to offer. According to his contemporaries and occasional adversaries, however, he’s up to the task.

A Texas veteran

Though the newest to the Southern Texas bench, Perez’s work in the district stretches back four decades. He graduated from the University of Chicago Law School in 1980 and has worked continuously in the Houston area since that year. He spent 22 of those years as a partner at Weil, serving most recently as the managing partner of the major firm’s Houston office until his retirement in late 2023. His practice ran the bankruptcy gamut, from debtor-side work to creditor advocacy and committee work.

Hugh Ray of McKool Smith said that Perez’s work threw him into the deep end right away. Over the years, Perez built a reputation on know-how, long working hours, and a studiousness well-suited to keeping Southern Texas’ name atop the venue race.

“What most people would consider a challenge wouldn’t bother him, because he’s worked so hard for so many years that it’s intuitive for him to work nights and weekends,” Ray said. “He’s lived it and worked it.”

Perez and Lopez’s shared history at Weil, Ray continued, grants the bench a familiarity and depth from which it stands to benefit. The firm’s national reputation guarantees that both came to the job not just with expertise in high-stakes cases but a familiarity with practicing in the region.

R.J Shannon of Shannon Lee Beatty, meanwhile, said that having judges that previously spent time “in the trenches” is good for the complex docket. He added that while he was initially skeptical of an attorney with mostly large-case experience handling a broader range of filings, his experience with Perez has been “almost entirely positive.” He noted that he thought the judge was “a little shaky on evidence at first” because bigger firms often bring in litigators, but Perez “got up to speed quickly.”

He also said Perez was “the right choice and is a good synthesis between the theoretical and practical.”

Patrick Hughes of Haynes & Boone, who worked “invariably” as opposing counsel to Perez in his lawyering days, in part echoed that sentiment. He noted that at Weil, the judge overlapped with several “scholarly” attorneys with an academic interest in bankruptcy law, leading them to engage in further study, independent of their specific caseloads. He also painted Perez as consistently well prepared and persistent, sometimes even stubborn.

Additionally, William Greendyke, who served as a Southern Texas bankruptcy judge from 1987 until 2004, said that Perez was part of a local panel over 20 years ago convened to discuss how to get major, local filings to stay close to home. Greendyke specifically noted the case of Imperial Sugar Company, which is based in Sugar Land, Texas but filed for Chapter 11 in Delaware, and Enron. Now, it seems that the effort to expand the district’s reach has come full circle for Perez.

The vacancy

Perez’s appointment and his workload came under unique circumstances. He occupies a seat previously held by David R Jones, former Chief Judge in Southern Texas and a force regularly credited with helping drive the district’s meteoric rise. Along with authoring multiple signature bankruptcy decisions – notably among them the since-overturned Serta Simmons Bedding confirmation order – Jones oversaw cases with billions in liabilities and ushered massive, complex cases to resolution whether by bench decision, mediation (regularly overseen by longtime colleague Judge Isgur), or remarkable exercises of judicial power such as removing chief officers from their own companies sua sponte.

Jones’ fall came when he publicly admitted to a years-long undisclosed romantic relationship with Elizabeth Freeman, a former clerk of his who later worked as a partner at Jackson Walker and then opened her own practice. The allegations were first raised by a shareholder in McDermott International, whose bankruptcy Jones oversaw. In October 2023, Jones acknowledged the relationship and stepped down, triggering fallout that ended his judicial career and threatened his legacy as one of the district’s grand architects.

In the wake of that scandal, which remains ongoing as the US Trustee’s Office works to claw back fees from Jackson Walker in over 30 of Jones’ former cases, several large bankruptcies were transferred into Lopez’s hands.

Less than a year later, Perez stepped into that vacuum, working alongside Lopez to keep one of the country’s busiest bankruptcy districts humming. That decision made perfect sense to Hughes.

“He was an excellent choice to provide some stability and high-level understanding of the complexity of the chapter 11 large cases at a time when the district doubtless had some questions regarding the Judge Jones fallout,” he said, adding “[my] hope is whenever another judge is needed, we are able to have a sophisticated chapter 11 practitioner willing to step in to pragmatically address these types of cases.”

Major district, major workload

Since Perez’s appointment, cases have continued to flow into Houston. Of the 29 cases assigned to Perez and tracked by Debtwire’s Restructuring Database (RDB) (meaning funded debt of over USD 10m), over one-third carried liabilities over USD 1bn. Lopez carries a similar ratio, but several of them were inherited from Jones, and generally he took them on much further into his judicial career.

According to the RDB, Lopez’s first solo billion-dollar cases were assigned in 2023, well past his 2019 appointment. Perez’s was Northvolt, less than four months in. He was assigned nine cases through the end of his first year with aggregate liabilities over USD 11bn, 10 in his second year, and has nine already in the first half of 2026 with nearly USD 14bn in aggregate liabilities.

With the massive, complex, and bitterly-fought cases now typical in Southern Texas, Perez has had to bring the skills and work ethic cited by his peers to bear.

QVC’s continuing controversy

Perhaps first to mind among the signature cases in Perez’s repertoire thus far is retailer QVC Group. He issued an opinion on 15 July confirming a heavily contested and controversial Chapter 11 plan after taking the matter under advisement on 10 June at the conclusion of a trial.

Purportedly a prepackaged plan and sold in first day filings as supported by broad consensus, a minority group of objecting preferred shareholders of parent entity QVCG quickly beset the debtors, arguing that an intercompany settlement at the core of the plan sapped away value to pay off liabilities at the debt-laden subsidiary levels. They opposed the disclosure statement, opposed confirmation of the plan, and moved for exclusivity termination. Initially, the shareholders had moved for the appointment of an equity committee before pivoting to the push for permission to file an alternative plan.

More specifically, the shareholders argued that but for the intercompany settlement, QVCG would be solvent. They initially won a delay in the original confirmation timeline, and Perez set a trial aligning confirmation with a hearing on approval of the settlement and exclusivity termination.

That trial kicked off 4 June. When it concluded on 10 June, Perez did not provide a timeline for his decision.

In his opinion, Perez roundly rejected several of the key arguments put forth by the shareholders. In response to the shareholders’ claim that QVC manufactured the USD 400m claim upon which the settlement was based, he wrote they “misconstrue[d] the timeline and the process of the negotiation.” He added that prior statements from QVCG’s counsel that the claims were meritless served as an “aggressive position” typical of negotiations, rather than an admission that would undermine the deal’s necessity.

The judge further called the shareholders’ argument that the settlement’s underpinning analysis was opaque “largely an attack on a straw man.” He wrote that the history of the intercompany transactions, though admittedly complex, was laid out clearly in the disclosure statement alongside the directors’ underlying assumptions. He also thoroughly rejected any arguments from the shareholders of various conflicts, including pertaining to advisor Evercore, other stakeholders, and more.

He also wrote that nixing the deal and pursuing litigation over the claims would serve largely to diminish potential recoveries, increase administrative burn, and provide minimal if any return to creditors.

The shareholders swiftly appealed Perez’s decision.

The Sunnova saga

Residential solar company Sunnova filed for Chapter 11 in June 2025, looking for a long-term solution to several issues including a changing regulatory environment. In addition, it quickly faced a deluge of challenges from creditors including installers and residents with a bevy of complaints. Managing the docket required Perez’s court to handle thousands of filings, often from individuals or small companies lacking traditional bankruptcy representation and Chapter 11 know-how. Those creditors often complained that they were owed money for certain projects by the debtors, or even that they were victims of fraud.

Over the following months in Sunnova’s bankruptcy, Perez oversaw several challenges to the sale of debtor assets and ushered the case forward. In August, he denied a creditor’s effort to undo the deal, and deployed reasoning that bears some similarity to his later QVC confirmation decision. As he did in that opinion, in the Sunnova reconsideration fight he noted that the sale hearing was thorough, featuring extensive testimony and cross examination. As in QVC, he reasoned that ample information was present and allowed him to make a confident decision on the sale.

In that same hearing, he also approved a settlement that resolved several disputes over millions of dollars. Roughly two weeks later, he approved another one which evaded a fight over enforcement of the sale of Sunnova’s assets.

Perez oversaw a contested confirmation hearing for Sunnova in November 2025. The primary objection came in the form of the now-common US Trustee pushback to opt-out third-party releases. He decided that the fact that Sunnova’s plan drew over 500 opt-out responses showed the process was appropriate and rejected the watchdog’s objection to the exculpation provisions. However, in a seeming example of the studiousness cited by his colleagues, he asked the debtors to make a handful of technical changes to the plan, including tweaking deadlines to dodge holidays and adding in the exculpated parties by name to avoid confusion.

Hughes also noted – seemingly evinced by Perez’s notes on the Sunnova plan, and elsewhere – that the judge can be particularly focused on wording. Hughes said that Perez, who is bilingual, will sometimes consider issues both in English and Spanish, considering how grammar might affect a court filing.

Saks’ bankruptcy journey 

Saks’ Chapter 11 filing came following weeks of speculation, both as to its timing and its venue, but Southern Texas sat near the top of the reporting for many of the news cycles leading up to its petition date. It ultimately landed with Perez, complete with a triple-DIP setup, a restructuring support agreement, and looming heavy pushback led by Amazon.

At a heavily contested first day hearing, Amazon vociferously objected to Saks’ proposed DIP specifically arguing that it would encumber an equity cushion tied to the debtors’ flagship store in New York City. At the end of a marathon hearing, Perez approved the DIP on an interim basis, reasoning centrally that the financing satisfied the business judgment standard. He also considered the idea that the flagship store, called the “crown jewel” asset, could be easily carved out from the financing package an unrealistic one. However, he did require certain changes to the order, including substantially increasing the proposed budget for the unsecured creditors committee to USD 250,000 from USD 50,000.

Over the following weeks, Saks shuttered stores, cut deals, and ultimately reached consensus before its final DIP hearing. In that proceeding, he said that the changes made to the financing order resolved around “97% of the issues.” He quickly rejected a request for a carveout from certain vendors, saying there was no evidence before him on the issue and that ordering such relief would be beyond the scope of what he was authorized to do.

Saks received confirmation of two Chapter 11 plans in June 2026 – one for the Saks Global debtors which handed their equity to their lenders, and a separate liquidation plan for other entities. In that hearing. Perez said that “[c]ounsel has done an extraordinary job of addressing” the large volume of objections and concerns raised.

The stewardship of Texas

Perez, alongside Lopez, stands tasked with helping manage a docket heavily populated with famed corporate names and billion-dollar-battles, as well as preserving a two-decade effort to place Southern Texas alongside New York and Delaware in bankruptcy law stature. While history remembers a time before Houston’s rise, every new mega case pushes that further back.

“What’s interesting to me, is that for a lawyer who is making partner now, cases have filed in Houston for most of their career. So, there’s nothing atypical for them about Houston as a popular venue,” said Douglas Mintz of Hogan Lovells Cadwalader.

“If they continue to get filings there consistently, there’s a whole generation of lawyers for whom cases just file in Houston. It’s part of a long-term pendulum. Different venues have risen and fallen over the last 45 years,” he added.

Shannon, meanwhile, said that while attorneys may drift toward Texas believing more favorable rulings await, the real allure comes from elsewhere.

“The majority of it – and its staying power – is that the Court here is remarkably easier to work with…there are fewer hoops to jump through here than any other court in which I’ve appeared,” he said.

Kyung Lee, also of Shannon Lee Beatty, said he has seen “significant progress” in Texas’ growth and he remains “hopeful that the [Southern District of] Texas will continue to be an important venue for bankruptcy cases.”

When asked why a bankruptcy attorney with four decades of experience and countless major cases under his belt would retire and immediately embark on a 14-year bench term, Greendyke answered quickly.

“I’ve never questioned why he did it,” said Greendyke, who now works in private practice for Norton Rose Fulbright. “I think he’s just happy to be here.”