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| Today's Bankruptcy Filings - A York Lawyer Asks to Join in the Fun |
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Thursday, November 08 2007 @ 01:27 AM EST
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Here are the Wednesday bankruptcy filings, the notable one being York lawyer Scott McNutt, who spoke at the hearing the other day, has applied to appear pro hac vice:
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Filed & Entered: 11/07/2007
Motion to Appear pro hac vice (B)
Docket Text: Motion to Appear pro hac vice of Scott H. McNutt of McNutt & Litteneker, LLP. Receipt Number 149509, Filed by York Capital Management. (Rosner, Frederick)
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Filed & Entered: 11/07/2007
Affidavit/Declaration of Service
Docket Text: Affidavit/Declaration of Service (and Service List) Regarding [Signed] Order Approving the Employment of Mesirow Financial Consulting, LLC as Financial Advisors to the Debtors (related document(s)[190] ) Filed by The SCO Group, Inc.. (O'Neill, James)
197 -
Filed & Entered: 11/07/2007
Affidavit/Declaration of Service
Docket Text: Affidavit/Declaration of Service (and Service List) Regarding [Signed] Order Authorizing Retention of Professionals Utilized in the Ordinary Course of Business Pursuant to Sections 327 and 328 of the Bankruptcy Code (related document(s)[192] ) Filed by The SCO Group, Inc.. (O'Neill, James) No doubt we'll be seeing more of him, the next time likely being at the hearing on the proposed sale of the assets on the 16th. Perhaps you'd like a little background on McNutt & Litteneker?
If so, here's a 2002 Business Times article, "Boutique law firms bite into corporate bankruptcy bonanza". Well. Who doesn't love a bonanza? Of course, that was a few years back, when there were a lot of bankruptcies. It mentions Pachulski, Stang, Ziehl, Young & Jones as another example of cream-sipping boutique law firms back then specializing in the bankruptcy bonanza. This will give you a flavor of Mr. McNutt, assuming he was quoted accurately, which I never actually do assume:
"At general practice firms, people with those relationships are valuable and cost a lot to bring on," said Tobias Keller, a partner in Pachulski, Stang's San Francisco office.
Just winning an introduction to creditors committees means winding through a labyrinth of contacts.
"It's like dogs in a vacant lot," McNutt said. "If you sniff enough butts, you're going to know a lot of dogs." Translation: it's all who you know. And if your specialty is bankruptcy, well... to survive one must get to know a lot of troubled folks. He went to Yale, but I don't think they teach you to talk like that at Yale. Well, maybe one could pick it up in the frat parties. Or maybe one starts to pick up the lingo in the hallways of bankruptcy courts, from one's clients. His partner attended the University of Utah, where they don't talk like that anywhere. Maybe in the dark. Just kidding around. Don't sue me. Here's a more refined firm profile: McNutt & Litteneker, LLP strives to provide the best insolvency services with the smallest possible firm. M&L specializes in complex bankruptcy and corporate restructuring cases. Among other things, the firm acts as general counsel in large bankruptcy cases, including selecting, hiring, and supervising associated firms with special non-bankruptcy expertise. M&L also provides litigation services, and strategy and oversight in tandem with litigation firms in complex bankruptcy related litigation matters. M&L has extensive experience in corporate bankruptcy, including handling cases in the technology and telecommunications industries, representing Committees, Trustees, Creditors and Debtors. Recent representations include the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors of At Home Corp. (Excite@Home) and affiliated entities, the post-confirmation entity established to liquidate the assets of At Home Corp. for the benefit of trade creditors, the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors of Webvan and affiliated entities, as well as multiple SBC affiliates in the Northpoint Bankruptcy case. I gather Mr. McNutt doesn't mind a bit of risk, and he isn't frightened by large firms. And his firm has handled bankruptcy auctions before. That's not all the firm does. A former partner in the firm, Michael Sweet, was appointed to the Human Rights Commission for the city of San Francisco, California in July, and his bio says that his specialties are "general civil litigation, restructuring and insolvency, and election law." However, Kinney Recruiting says the firm was hit hard by a downturn in bankruptcies, and it went from 10 lawyers to the two original partners. But the Estrin Report says the field is "buzzing with anticipation" now, since bankruptcy guys do well in recessions. Interestingly, both the firm and Morrison & Foerster participate in a project, The Brobeck Closed Archive, which is absolutely a wonderful idea, I think. Here's what it is and why it came into being:
Q: What happened to Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison?
Explanations differ, but the long and the short of it is that Brobeck entered liquidation in February 2003. The firm continued to exist on a shoestring until September 2003, when it sought protection in United States Bankruptcy Court. Since then, the Brobeck estate has been administered by Ron Greenspan, a court-appointed trustee. The trustee’s account of what happened to Brobeck is available [PDF].
Q: What is the Brobeck Closed Archive?
A. The Brobeck Closed Archive is a secure digital repository authorized by order of Judge Dennis Montali, United States Bankruptcy Court, North District of California, San Francisco Division on August 9, 2006. The “Order Granting Motion for Order (A) Authorizing the Abandonment of Brobeck’s Digital Records...” and related exhibits are available. The short version is a huge law firm, with 189 partners alone, went belly up, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, and after it all settled, all the records were going to be abandoned, so someone had the brainstorm of collecting it all and preserving them all for history's sake as a significant piece of the history of the dot.com bubble when it burst. It isn't, obviously, open to the general public. Someday, perhaps. But it's being preserved, meaning someone is looking out for the upkeep that digital records require. The trustee's report is truly fascinating to read, and I learned quite a bit about bankruptcy processes from reading it. I think you'll enjoy taking a look. It's way more interesting than any of the filings in this day's collection. Oh, and just as a small footnote to history, Brobeck was the law firm that represented Caldera in its 2001 deal with Santa Cruz regarding OpenServer, as you can see if you look at the filings listed on that linked page.
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| Authored by: fudisbad on Thursday, November 08 2007 @ 01:33 AM EST |
Place off topic comments in this thread, including clickable links if
appropriate.
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"SCO’s failure to provide code for the methods and concepts it claims were
misappropriated is [...] a violation of this court’s orders." - Judge Brooke
Wells[ Reply to This | # ]
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- Telstra shareholders reject executive renumeration increases, but they go ahead anyway? - Authored by: Arthur Marsh on Thursday, November 08 2007 @ 05:08 AM EST
- marginally on topic -- U of Utah language standards - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, November 08 2007 @ 06:18 AM EST
- At last! - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, November 08 2007 @ 07:27 AM EST
- Where is M$? - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, November 08 2007 @ 07:34 AM EST
- Where is M$? - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, November 08 2007 @ 10:07 AM EST
- Where's the money - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, November 08 2007 @ 08:13 AM EST
- Employee E-Mail and the Attorney-Client Privilege - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, November 08 2007 @ 08:50 AM EST
- Canada's Hushmail open to US Feds with court orders - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, November 08 2007 @ 09:17 AM EST
- Even farther on the fringe regarding Utah. - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, November 08 2007 @ 10:36 AM EST
- Fedora 8 is released today - Authored by: Sunny Penguin on Thursday, November 08 2007 @ 12:50 PM EST
- SCOX is up to $0.29 - Authored by: Yossarian on Thursday, November 08 2007 @ 01:36 PM EST
- SCO delisting hearing today? - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, November 08 2007 @ 02:55 PM EST
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| Authored by: fudisbad on Thursday, November 08 2007 @ 01:34 AM EST |
Corrections to the article go here.
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"SCO’s failure to provide code for the methods and concepts it claims were
misappropriated is [...] a violation of this court’s orders." - Judge Brooke
Wells[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: fudisbad on Thursday, November 08 2007 @ 01:36 AM EST |
Place comments regarding newspic items in this thread.
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"SCO’s failure to provide code for the methods and concepts it claims were
misappropriated is [...] a violation of this court’s orders." - Judge Brooke
Wells[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Zarkov on Thursday, November 08 2007 @ 03:00 AM EST |
That sounds like a very worthwhile project... call me jaded tho - I hope they
are using ODF to preserve that archive, else it could all be for nothing
'someone' changes the data formats....[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, November 08 2007 @ 04:03 AM EST |
all the records were going to be abandoned, so someone had the
brainstorm of collecting it all and preserving them all for history's sake as a
significant piece of the history of the dot.com bubble when it burst. It isn't,
obviously, open to the general public. Someday, perhaps. But it's being
preserved, meaning someone is looking out for the upkeep that digital records
require.
It's likely that by the time the Brobeck Closed Archive
is opened for people who want to do research, nobody will have software that can
read the formats of many of the files.
I've had some interesting
experiences with that lately. I have:
- Word processing and spreadsheet
files that I can't open anymore, and which no other software will import.
(Novell Perfectworks office suite).
- An extensive (and expensive) set
of maps from National Geographic in a proprietary format that requires software
I can't run anymore.
- A complete collection of Shakespeare's works in
proprietary format that requires software I can't run anymore.
- An
award winning music CD that includes a multi media presentation that I can't
view on a modern computer. (Grievous Angels "Waiting for the Cage" - the tunes
still play fine on the stereo though)
WINE doesn't seem to be able
to run 16 bit software on a 64 bit PC. With some of this stuff, I could run the
original software in QEMU. That's not a very useful or pleasant solution though.
It also wouldn't help me if I didn't have the original software or
obsolete operating system anymore. I can probably find a Shakespeare's works on
line somewhere, but the rest of the stuff doesn't look to be easily replaceable.
Fiddling with import filters doesn't do you any good if nothing knows how
to import this stuff. I have may own little personal "archive" here, and I can't
do much with it. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Ian Al on Thursday, November 08 2007 @ 04:19 AM EST |
Cattleback, cattlerustling, Bonanza! It looks like we have the themed version of
Groklaw in the making!
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Regards
Ian Al
Linux: Genuine Advantage[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Stevieboy on Thursday, November 08 2007 @ 04:41 AM EST |
Can anybody do a head count as to how many lawyers SCO has employed in their
various litigations etc since Darl McBride joined the company?[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: DaveJakeman on Thursday, November 08 2007 @ 05:47 AM EST |
The story of the decline of Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison - the law firm Santa
Cruz used on their side of the APA negotiations with Novell - is interesting
(although I haven't finished reading it yet). What first struck me though, is
that if the US Trustee does as much research into the demise of SCO as did the
Trustee for BPH, alarm bells should be sounding off left, right and centre.
Also, those records, which unfortunately we are unable to see, should contain
interesting documents from the APA negotiations that SCO chose not to show us.
Things like red-line mark-ups of early APA drafts. Tor Braham of Wilson Sonsini
Goodrich & Rosati demonstrated that laws firms hang on to that kind of stuff
for years and years.
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Monopolistic Ignominious Corporation Requiring Office $tandard Only For
Themselves[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, November 08 2007 @ 07:05 AM EST |
York is not a creditor, nor have they done any business with SCO in the past,
other than the planning for this fire sale. Do they have standing to present any
arguments before the bankruptcy court? I would think that if SCO wants to do the
fire sale, then they would have to present the pertinent information to the
court themselves. After all, York doesn't have any reason to seek an outcome
that is equitable for anyone other than themselves, but SCO is obligated (at
least theoretically) to try to obtain the best outcome for all of the creditors.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: DaveJakeman on Thursday, November 08 2007 @ 08:15 AM EST |
As a result of the Trustee’s investigation into the Liquidation
Committee’s affairs, including review of documents produced by
Brobeck’s
then-counsel, the Pachulski, Stang law firm, the Trustee
concluded that a substantial portion of the
Liquidation Committee’s work had
been of no benefit to Brobeck, a plainly insolvent entity at the
time. Rather,
these efforts had been aimed at benefiting Brobeck’s equity owners.
Accordingly,
these partners would, in the Trustee’s view, have liability for the
excess of the compensation they
received over the reasonable value of the
services they rendered, measured by the benefit to Brobeck
without regard to
benefit to its equity owners and for the diversion of firm assets to benefit
equity
owners at the expense of creditors.
So, Pachulski Stang
etc. helped mop up the remains of the law firm Santa Cruz used to negotiate the
APA, and here they are today, helping mop up the remains of SCO. You don't
suppose they'll be working to help SCO benefit "its equity owners and for the
diversion of firm assets to benefit equity owners at the expense of creditors"?
No, surely that would be too much of a coincidence.
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Monopolistic
Ignominious Corporation Requiring Office $tandard Only For Themselves [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: bastiaan on Thursday, November 08 2007 @ 08:26 AM EST |
Reading the Trustee’s account of what happened to Brobeck, it seems odd to me
that the Trustee refers to himself as "the Trustee", but then switches
to "me" and "I" randomly. Is there a particular reason for
that?[ Reply to This | # ]
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- Brobeck Mountain? - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, November 08 2007 @ 11:39 AM EST
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, November 08 2007 @ 10:34 AM EST |
And honestly this whole thing shows how petty and vindictive and dishonest the
"SYSTEM" is. Be bad and you can screw every one. The whole thing is a
big joke and if not for us die hard (formerly bearded hackers) i guarantee the
outcome would have been much differant as word of mouth for pj's site has opened
this to the world view and thus added some respectibility at least to free
speech.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: webster on Thursday, November 08 2007 @ 11:29 AM EST |
..
1. Where's the Money by eric76: ---"SCO's claim that the money is spent
and thus not recoverable should give Novell an excellent argument against
permitting SCO to comingle the license payments with any other money."---
Yes. As usual, SCO refutes themselves. But if the Judge recognizes this, no one
else gets anything. He is turning a blind eye to Novell and the Utah Court,
too, by the way. Judicial independence, impartiality, and maintaining the
appearance of propriety, involve not appearing to be told what to do by another
Judge. It usually happens when the Judge initiates the idea himself.
2. A York Lawyer Asks to Join in the Fun: There is something fishy here. It
smells like a fix, or a sweaty, eager stalking horse. This nag is running like
a steed. They are paying a lawyer to get involved with a "bankrupt"
firm. They must have a deal already in their back pocket, a guarantee in the
other. One should outbid them by the minimum and then ask them to cut you in on
their deal. They might even make more this way.
3. Comforting ambivalence - There is frustration expressed at how easily SCO
manipulates the courts to execute their scheme and avoid any accountability for
it. One has to develop a comforting ambivalence so there is some consolation
and rationale to get through bitterly disappointing outcomes. One has to turn
adversity into a positive. A good example of this survival technique is
********* fans. The controversial owner seems to turn winners into losers. He
is controversial due to many in-and-out-of- sport actions that reflect
personality. When the team loses, the disappointed fan can console himself that
the unpleasant owner gets no satisfaction and may consider selling. If this
ambivalence spreads to the players, ....
So where can open source fans find comforting ambivalence in the SCO saga? Find
it in the American Way of Bankruptcy. Failure has its joys. The court will
wrap you in a soft cocoon. You can be born again, sprout your wings and fly.
When one falls, the bottom is not so hard. When the end is in sight, run up
those credit cards. Have the company buy new refrigerators. Pay your friends
and family. The big companies can take it. The court will protect you just as
it does SCO. You can't bleed a turnip so bleed while you can. It doesn't have
to be your blood. Remember it is all already taken into consideration and
expected. That's why the interest rates and fees are so high. Bankruptcy is for
everybody. The court will protect you just as it does SCO. BK is a factor in
every lawsuit. If you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose. It is no
accident that SCO, not a large successful corporation, took off down this risky,
litigious path. SCO the corporation may be bankrupt, but its prime-movers have
already prospered by millions, albeit crumbs beside what was anticipated. E.g.
Consider a member, a franchisee, of a failing national franchise. He can spend
like mad in anticipation of the national and then local bankruptcy. New
appliances and vacations are in order. The trustee is too busy with other game.
Remember a life without risk is a life without living. If you consider the
worst, death, taxes, and bankruptcy, one out of three ain't so bad.
---
webster[ Reply to This | # ]
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- "Blind eye" is troubling. - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, November 08 2007 @ 11:57 AM EST
- Shopping - Authored by: webster on Thursday, November 08 2007 @ 12:10 PM EST
- Shopping - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, November 08 2007 @ 01:17 PM EST
- What a combo! - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, November 08 2007 @ 03:14 PM EST
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