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The Weinstein Co. Chapter 11 Hearing #5

posted by Melissa Jacoby

The fifth hearing in The Weinstein Co. chapter 11 occurred on June 5, 2018. The hearing included discussion about when the sale to Lantern Capital, approved by the court in early May, will actually close. Among other regulatory and transactional hurdles, TWC's lawyers mentioned that it still is not resolved which contracts will be included in the sale, but they hoped the sale would close within the month.

As for matters that resulted in a ruling, I'll briefly mention two.

  1. Sustaining a United States Trustee objection, the court denied the motion for Harvey Weinstein's October 15, 2015 employment contract to be filed under seal, as the standards of 11 U.S.C. § 107 were not satisfied. That contract is now available on the bankruptcy court docket. The document was filed by the Geiss plaintiffs (stemming from alleged sexual misconduct, discussed below) but TWC was the party advocating for sealing.
  2. The court approved the Geiss parties' motion to lift the automatic stay to permit the Geiss action to go forward against TWC, alongside other defendants, in the Southern District of New York, allowing liquidation of those claims. The SDNY district judge presiding over the Geiss action directed the plaintiffs to file the lift-stay motion; hearing transcripts illustrate his aim to minimize duplication of efforts. Part of TWC's argument against lifting the stay was the classic matter of distraction. Applying the relevant case law to the facts, the court observed that while closing the sale was a complicated matter, TWC was neither reorganizing in a traditional sense or seeking to stabilize its operations at this time. And, as in other cases, the distraction argument may be weakened when separate lawyers are handling the non-bankruptcy litigation. Seyfarth Shaw was representing TWC in the Geiss litigation, at least prior to the bankruptcy (leading the firm to successfully seek payment of its prepetition claim out of an insurance policy, over the creditor committee's objection - seek dkt #1000).

Speaking of professionals, initial interim fee applications for TWC's professionals for March 19-April 30, 2018 were not on the June 5 agenda, but are on the court docket. TWC has NY counsel and local counsel. Just to give you a sense, Cravath's fee application includes over 3,200 hours billed by 27 attorneys (dkt #929). Richards, Layton & Finger's fee application includes over 1,200 hours billed by 16 attorneys (dkt #932). Plus paraprofessionals at these two firms. Billing separately, of course, are FTI Consulting (dkt #870) and Moelis, the investment banker (dkt #946).

The next hearing in TWC's bankruptcy is scheduled for June 22, 2018. The SDNY Geiss action, in the motion to dismiss phase, is also very much worth watching.

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