Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Indiana Pension Funds Move To District Court To Block Chrysler Sale

In a last ditch effort to stall the Chrysler sale, the Indiana Pension Fund has moved its objection to the 363 sale away from Gonzalez who flatly denied the plaintiff's objection, and have moved it, with the assistant of White & Case's Tom Lauria to NY Southern District Court. A hearing with Judge Thomas Griesa commenced at 11:45am today, ahead of tomorrow's bankruptcy court hearing to approve the sale. From the memorandum filed in district court (attached below in its entirety):
Rather than pay the secured creditors as required, the Debtors – at the Government’s direction – are essentially transferring the Collateral with any value to New Chrysler and then divvying up the majority of that value among unsecured creditors (the United Auto Workers (“UAW”)) and third parties (the US Treasury Department and Fiat).
In response to this action, the U.S. Treasury Department had the following retort: "Put simply, it is nothing more than a last-ditch, eleventh-hour effort by a dissident faction of the debtors’ senior secured lenders to obstruct and impede core matters in Chrysler’s chapter 11 cases from being heard in bankruptcy court, which is the proper forum."

While it is unclear how quick the turnaround on the case should be, and just how the two venues would interact, at this point it is safe to say that Lauria is willing to take this matter to the Supreme Court if need be (and need likely will be). He better hurry before brand spanking new Obama nominee Sotomayor is inducted.


Indiana Pension Funds Objection - District Court - Sphere: Related Content
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