SCO is on a roll. Now it has filed a motion to amend [PDF] its earlier, granted, motion [PDF] authorizing it to pay pre-petition employees and independent contractors a certain amount per month in the ordinary course of business. You'll recall that the US Trustee's Office asked for caps to be established. It seems the caps are too low now in SCO's estimation, and SCO needs to pay them mo' money or they might quit: 11. If the Debtors cannot pay these amounts, certain Employees may terminate their employment with the Debtors at a time when the workforce has already been steadily resigning and the Debtors are dealing with fiscal year-end issues. Sounds dire indeed. SCO now realizes it didn't ask for a high enough cap for business expenses. It has received more expense reimbursement requests from folks (SCO doesn't say from whom exactly, employees or contractors or both) for pre-petition business expenses, so SCO asks that the court lift the cap on expenses to $47,000, as opposed to the $15,000 cap established before. Heavens to Betsy. That's more than tripling the cap. How could SCO not have known previously about this kind of disparity?
Then there's the independent contractors. SCO was authorized to pay them up to $10,950, up to an aggregate amount for all pre-petition contractors of $50,000. Well, that's not enough, they say. They need the cap to be $57,000 a month. Who are these folks who will walk if SCO doesn't pay them, I wonder? Employees or independent contractors? If the latter, are they programmers? Accountants? Executives? They have hired post-petition accounting temps, but this is talking about pre-petition. Or are we talking Bert Young and Mike Olson again? Not the temp CFO, I don't think. There will be a hearing, and I guess we'll find out then.
If SCO's talking about Young and Olson, they already quit, so losing them is not a worry. It's why they are now contractors, and they are leaving shortly anyway, or so SCO told the court. If they can earn that much a month and incur expenses to that level, well... maybe in Vegas. And if we're talking about pre-petition independent contractors who are coding for SCO, as mentioned in the 341 Creditors' Meeting, I don't care how much pizza and soda you buy, you probably can't spend that much in a single month.
The docket filings: 279 -
Filed & Entered: 12/19/2007
Motion to Amend (B)
Docket Text: Motion to Amend Debtors' Motion to (I) Amend Certain Amounts of Payments Authorized Pursuant to the Employee Wage Order and (II) Authorize the Payment of the Amended Amounts to Certain Employees Filed by The SCO Group, Inc.. Hearing scheduled for 1/8/2008 at 10:00 AM at US Bankruptcy Court, 824 Market St., 6th Fl., Courtroom #3, Wilmington, Delaware. Objections due by 12/28/2007. (Attachments: # (1) Notice # (2) Proposed Form of Order # (3) Certificate of Service and Service List) (Werkheiser, Rachel)
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