Litigation Coverage: Optimum Amended Co-Op Antitrust Complaint Adds Tortious Interference Claim; Accuses Co-Op Lenders of Forcing Kirkland Withdrawal, Threatening Potential Replacements

Relevant Document:
Amended Complaint

Optimum Communications today amended its complaint in the lender cooperation agreement antitrust suit accusing its creditors of colluding to drive the company into bankruptcy, adding allegations that the co-op lenders “took their anticompetitive scheme to new heights” by forcing the company’s transaction counsel Kirkland & Ellis to withdraw from representing Optimum in negotiations with its creditors.

In November 2025, Optimum sued the co-op lenders including Apollo, Ares, BlackRock and other creditors challenging their cooperation agreement as a “classic illegal cartel.” The purpose of the agreement, according to the complaint, is to lock Optimum out of the credit market unless it offers restructuring terms acceptable to the entire group of creditors.

The defendants on Feb. 6 moved to dismiss the suit.

Optimum asserts in its amended complaint that it retained Kirkland in August 2025 to negotiate with the company’s creditors and devise transactions to improve its capital structure. Kirkland does not represent Optimum in the antitrust suit.

According to Optimum, the defendants were “incensed” by the antitrust suit and retaliated with a pressure campaign to force Kirkland to resign as transaction counsel. The defendants leveraged “hundreds of millions of dollars in existing or potential business for Kirkland” to push Kirkland into withdrawing as Optimum’s counsel, the amended complaint alleges.

Optimum asserts that the co-op’s threatened boycott of Kirkland “serves no plausible procompetitive aim.” Moreover, the co-op’s ability to force Kirkland’s surrender confirms their market power, according to Optimum, arguing that “if not even the world’s richest law firm can withstand the Cooperative’s threats, leveraged debtors like Optimum stand little chance.”

Optimum also notes that threats from a single creditor could not have convinced Kirkland to capitulate and that it “took [the] Defendants’ collective market power to bring Kirkland to heel.”

The amended complaint further alleges that the defendants subsequently interfered with Optimum’s efforts to find replacement counsel. The defendants “exerted similar pressure on at least two other law firms to refrain from taking over the engagement once Kirkland withdrew,” Optimum asserts.

Optimum adds a claim for tortious interference with business relations to its previously asserted antitrust, breach of contract and breach of implied covenant claims.

Optimum in a statement said, “The amended complaint details the additional anticompetitive and retaliatory actions taken by the lender Cooperative to constrain access to credit markets and interfere with the Company’s professional relationships.”

“The amended filing further supports the merits of Optimum’s claims and provides yet another illustration of how the creditors’ scheme violates antitrust laws. The Company remains focused on addressing its capital structure on terms that support the business’s long-term success,” according to the statement.