Tuesday, June 23, 2009

US Trustee In GM Case Throws Up All Over Evercore Fee App; Calls Fee Demand "Staggering" and "Incredible"

Finally someone is sticking against the taxpayer rape going on behind the scenes each and every day in bankruptcy court (even if it is paradoxically the government itself), in which taxpayers directly pay Wall Street's investment banks who pretend to facilitate Obama's pet UAW-placating and merely liquidation-delaying projects.

The money shot from the US Trustee's objection below:
The Court should deny the Application. The fees sought by Evercore are staggering: Evercore seeks $400,000 (assuming the sale closes in one month) in addition to the $46 million paid prepetition and in addition to an extraordinarily large success fee of $17.9 million (which includes the Government Funded Sale Fee, DIP Structuring Fee, and the Delphi Fee). This compensation request is all the more incredible in light of the fact that the Debtors are also retaining a Crisis Manager, which is asking for its own success bonus. Not only does the scope of services of these two professionals have some apparent overlap, but it is impossible to justify these inordinately large bonuses under the circumstances of these cases. This was not the circumstance where the financial advisor was left to search for a buyer and through its own unique and extraordinary efforts identified a white knight to save the company and the jobs of the Debtors’ employees. On the contrary, Evercore had no success at finding a purchaser or funder for the Debtors. In light of these facts, the Evercore Application clearly exceeds the bounds of reasonableness.

Because the Debtors have not, and cannot, justify the fee structure and bonuses for Evercore the application cannot be approved.

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