decoration decoration
Stories

GROKLAW
When you want to know more...
decoration
For layout only
Home
Archives
Site Map
Search
About Groklaw
Awards
Legal Research
Timelines
ApplevSamsung
ApplevSamsung p.2
ArchiveExplorer
Autozone
Bilski
Cases
Cast: Lawyers
Comes v. MS
Contracts/Documents
Courts
DRM
Gordon v MS
GPL
Grokdoc
HTML How To
IPI v RH
IV v. Google
Legal Docs
Lodsys
MS Litigations
MSvB&N
News Picks
Novell v. MS
Novell-MS Deal
ODF/OOXML
OOXML Appeals
OraclevGoogle
Patents
ProjectMonterey
Psystar
Quote Database
Red Hat v SCO
Salus Book
SCEA v Hotz
SCO Appeals
SCO Bankruptcy
SCO Financials
SCO Overview
SCO v IBM
SCO v Novell
SCO:Soup2Nuts
SCOsource
Sean Daly
Software Patents
Switch to Linux
Transcripts
Unix Books

Gear

Groklaw Gear

Click here to send an email to the editor of this weblog.


You won't find me on Facebook


Donate

Donate Paypal


No Legal Advice

The information on Groklaw is not intended to constitute legal advice. While Mark is a lawyer and he has asked other lawyers and law students to contribute articles, all of these articles are offered to help educate, not to provide specific legal advice. They are not your lawyers.

Here's Groklaw's comments policy.


What's New

STORIES
No new stories

COMMENTS last 48 hrs
No new comments


Sponsors

Hosting:
hosted by ibiblio

On servers donated to ibiblio by AMD.

Webmaster
Notice of Agenda for SCO Bankruptcy Hearing on the 27th - Update: hearing cancelled
Monday, January 25 2010 @ 03:51 PM EST

The Notice of Agenda [PDF] is up, letting us know what will be handled on the 27th in bankruptcy court. All that is on the schedule is the motion [PDF] by Edward Cahn, SCO's Chapter 11 trustee, to approve SCO board members issuing some stock options to themselves after they forgot to timely do so, without first seeking approval or apparently even telling Mr. Cahn first. The story is they voted in August to issue them, but then they forgot to actually do so for some months.

I don't know why they bother with all the paperwork. In bankruptcy court in Delaware, the corporate debtor always wins and creditors get nothing, from what we've seen, or at least 99% of the time. They seem to like it that way.

[ Update: What'd I tell you? The judge has already signed the order. I have it for you.]

Approving this motion ... well, it sticks in my craw, for all the reasons I painstakingly outlined when SCO filed this beaut of a motion, mainly because of SCO's 2004 Change of Control Agreement, which I believe means this motion will drain money from the company, not pull it in, when it comes to the end of the almost impenetrable plan, but I'm not the one who gets to decide.

Here is the docket:

01/25/2010 - 1039 - Certificate of No Objection (related document(s) 1033 ) Filed by Edward N. Cahn, Chapter 11 Trustee for The SCO Group, Inc., et al.. (Fatell, Bonnie) (Entered: 01/25/2010)

01/25/2010 - 1040 - Notice of Agenda of Matters Scheduled for Hearing Filed by Edward N. Cahn, Chapter 11 Trustee for The SCO Group, Inc., et al.. Hearing scheduled for 1/27/2010 at 03:00 PM at US Bankruptcy Court, 824 Market St., 6th Fl., Courtroom #3, Wilmington, Delaware. (Fatell, Bonnie) (Entered: 01/25/2010)

Judge Gross generally does whatever Mr. Cahn tells him to do, so I don't know whether to encourage you to attend or not. No one has filed any opposition, which doesn't mean no one will speak at the hearing. But it is possible it will be rubber stamped in 5 minutes and you will have traveled for hours for nothing. I'll leave it up to you. I naturally would like to chronicle every little twist in the river until we reach the ocean, so to speak, particularly if I suspect a diversion of the some of the water to a private pond, but I'm also aware it's asking a lot. If you do decide to go, check with the courthouse before you set out. The Status line in the filing says: "The hearing on this matter will go forward if the Court believes a hearing is necessary." And if he's just going to rubber stamp, why would he want a hearing? One issue mentioned in the motion is whether or not Mr. Cahn taking over as Chapter 11 trustee is a change of control event. If so, it matters a lot, but no matter what happens on the 27th, that issue won't be decided then anyway, I wouldn't think.

Updated docket, the order:

01/25/2010 - 1041 - Order (1) Confirming That Certain Stock Options Granted Post-Petition Were Awarded In The Ordinary Course Of The Debtors' Business (2) Authorizing the Trustee To Honor Certain Stock Options Exercised In Accordance With The Debtors' Books And Records (3) Confirming Notice As Given Is Sufficient And (4) Granting Related Relief. (related document(s) 1033 ) Order Signed on 1/25/2010. (GM) (Entered: 01/25/2010)

Obviously, this means there will be no hearing, so don't ask for a day off from work, whatever you do.

Update 2: Surprise, surprise. No hearing on the 27th. And Ocean Park submits another bill:

01/26/2010 - 1042 - HEARING CANCELLED/RESCHEDULED. Amended Notice of Agenda of Matters Scheduled for Hearing. Filed by Edward N. Cahn, Chapter 11 Trustee for The SCO Group, Inc., et al.. Hearing scheduled for 1/27/2010 at 03:00 PM at US Bankruptcy Court, 824 Market St., 6th Fl., Courtroom #3, Wilmington, Delaware. (Fatell, Bonnie) (Entered: 01/26/2010)

01/26/2010 - 1043 - Certificate of No Objection (related document(s) 986 , 996 ) Filed by Edward N. Cahn, Chapter 11 Trustee for The SCO Group, Inc., et al.. (Fatell, Bonnie) (Entered: 01/26/2010)

01/26/2010 - 1044 - Certificate of No Objection (related document(s) 985 , 997 ) Filed by Edward N. Cahn, Chapter 11 Trustee for The SCO Group, Inc., et al.. (Fatell, Bonnie) (Entered: 01/26/2010)

01/26/2010 - 1045 - Second Application for Compensation and Reimbursement of Expenses for the Period of November 1, 2009 Through November 30, 2009 Filed by Ocean Park Advisors, LLC. Objections due by 2/15/2010. (Attachments: # 1 Notice # 2 Exhibit A # 3 Exhibit B # 4 Certificate of Service) (Fatell, Bonnie) (Entered: 01/26/2010)

Most of Ocean Park's second bill, which covers the month of November, as you can see by the break down in Exhibit A, is for "Communication with potential lenders." $21,675.00. Next is "Analysis, Preparation and Execution of Restructuring Plan" at $12,729.00. A close third is "Analysis & Preparation of Budget & Reports". The grand total is $64,137.00.

Wait a second. Wasn't the story that the board issued itself its "forgotten" shares in December? What about this Ocean Park entry:

11/19/09 - Mark Fisler - Managing Director - 3.5 - 1,487.50 - Review of e-mails from debtor. Review of stock option grant analysis. - 4
That's November. Not December. So I wonder now if Ocean Park at least knew about all this before it happened? May it was Ocean Park that discovered it? Here's an entry a few days' later:
11/23/09 - Mark Fisler - Managing Director - 1.7 - $722.50 - Review of emails. Discussion with Debtor on option program history. Review and modification of NDA for execution.
NDA? A couple of days later, we see it's about an "NDA to potential lender". And all through November, you see items about potential lender. On November 23, I see Bruce Comer spent 0.3 hours on: "Correspondence with strategic partner." On the 30th Vinod Bhat, an associate, "Completed package for potential Lender." This is January. So, what happened? I guess we'll find out in the December bill, unless there is some announcement before then, if it was successful. If not, the next bill will show more such efforts with other potential lenders.

  


Notice of Agenda for SCO Bankruptcy Hearing on the 27th - Update: hearing cancelled | 103 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Off-topic threads here
Authored by: laitcg on Monday, January 25 2010 @ 04:02 PM EST
You know the drill...

[ Reply to This | # ]

corrections here
Authored by: designerfx on Monday, January 25 2010 @ 04:06 PM EST
because our grammar can only be defeated by our spelling

[ Reply to This | # ]

News Picks discussion
Authored by: ais523 on Monday, January 25 2010 @ 04:22 PM EST
Talk about the links in the sidebar here.

[ Reply to This | # ]

I must admit..
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 25 2010 @ 08:34 PM EST

Mid Aug. has the commons at less than $0.10./share. "We voted
ourselves a grant at $0.02 over the common price but we didn't
really care because we didn't believe the price of the shares would
ever really go up"? Now the scramble to fumble with the paperwork
and the legal details? I still don't think it's a big deal but I would
surely be interested to know the exact numbers, if they come out
at the hearing. If and how these things ever get exercised and
against what is where the rubber hits the road. And for what price.
After the severe arm twisting I think I'm starting to see PJ's point
a little. We need to know the strike price and against what
underlying instrument these things were granted. Exhibit B
according to the motion gives us the numbers. Do we have that?
The motion also says permission from the court will be required
to exercise. Yeah, this is even starting to bug me a bit.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Judge Gross has signed the order
Authored by: ChrisP on Monday, January 25 2010 @ 09:07 PM EST
It appears that Judge Gross has signed the order without alterations. I guess
that means there won't be a hearing on Wednesday.

---
SCO^WM$^WIBM^W, oh bother, no-one paid me to say this.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Normal in Delaware? Or just Judge Gross?
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 26 2010 @ 01:09 AM EST

Agreed, Judge Gross consistently gives Cahn whatever he asks for, and ignores the interests of the creditors. Delaware does have a reputation as a jurisdiction favorable to corporations, but is it really normal for all Delaware bankruptcy judges to be as biased as Gross? Does anyone have information about what other Delaware bankruptcy judges do?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Notice of Agenda for SCO Bankruptcy Hearing on the 27th - Update: hearing cancelled
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 26 2010 @ 11:20 PM EST
I think it's beginning to look like the 'best' thing that can happen (for a given value of 'best') is that Cahn et al bleed SCO dry before they can go to trial.

Or perhaps it's late and I'm feeling overly cynical.

[ Reply to This | # ]

  • Wondering - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, January 27 2010 @ 04:06 PM EST
Groklaw © Copyright 2003-2013 Pamela Jones.
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners.
Comments are owned by the individual posters.

PJ's articles are licensed under a Creative Commons License. ( Details )