Chapter 11 announced

[David CO]

34 minutes ago, 5thGenTexan said:

I won't post who posted it, but statements bordering on threats are popping up on FB,

 

"If you are not part of the process and on regular calls with the Ad Hoc Committee on this, PLEASE do not keep posting the "what ifs" on this site!!"

I agree.  Post them here.

 

[RememberSchiff]

3/18/2021:

DEBTORS’ THIRD MOTION FOR ENTRY OF AN ORDER EXTENDING THE DEBTORS’ EXCLUSIVE PERIODS TO FILE A CHAPTER 11 PLAN AND SOLICIT ACCEPTANCES THEREOF

"The exclusive period for the Debtors to file a chapter 11 plan is hereby extended by approximately 152 days, to and including August 18, 2021. The period during which the Debtors have the exclusive right to solicit acceptances thereof is hereby extended by approximately 153 days, to and including October 18, 2021."

https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/882718_2411.pdf

 

[Eagle1993]

“has had an unforeseen and pronounced negative effect on the Debtors’ operations, including an 81% membership recruitment decline in 2020 attributable to school closures and social distancing measures.”

[RememberSchiff]

3/17/2021:

"Under a pact approved Wednesday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., lawsuits can be filed against the local councils that hold the bulk of the Boy Scouts wealth, but the litigation won’t progress until mid-July. The trade off is that survivors’ lawyers will receive detailed roster data needed to identify local councils and other organizations that chartered individual troops where the sexual abuse took place."

https://www.wsj.com/articles/local-boy-scouts-councils-agree-to-cooperate-on-abuse-victims-probe-11616017053

[RememberSchiff]

Some IMHOs:

1. We cannot say we will run out of money in August and then ask for an extension past that date.

2.  We (and survivors) do not want the litigation spreading to our councils whether they still exist or are absorbed into National this summer.

3. The excuses given regarding the incomplete Mar 1, "Revised Plan" would not sway my high school literature teacher.

4. Following her thought "bring a toothbrush", I hope the judge sequesters the "relevant" parties into a room to amend the incomplete, problematic Mar 1, "Revised Plan" into a complete, acceptable "Compromise Plan" by May 1. There will be no extensions. If a "Compromise Plan" is not accepted, the alternatives for the Debtor are to exit bankruptcy or liquidate. 

By "relevant parties",  some parties are not or worse publicly disagree with the judge stated outcome that the BSA should continue its mission. They can brush at home.

My $0.02,

Edited March 19, 2021 by RememberSchiff

[ThenNow]

36 minutes ago, RememberSchiff said:

We (and survivors) do not want the litigation spreading to our councils whether they still exist or are absorbed into National this summer.

I agree. I realize the lurking White-Bearded Shark says differently, but we know almost 60,000 of the (current) pool of survivor claims derive from closed states. Granted, many who filed claims by "absentee ballot" may be unaware of what's what, but getting kicked to state court is not a good result for the vast number of us. My state has pending SoL "reform" legislation, but many do not. Even given that legislation, it's far from a guarantee of change any time soon.

As for me and my house, I really want this to work. Foolishly or not, I feel like it can, it should and it will.

Edited March 19, 2021 by ThenNow
Typoz

[ThenNow]

46 minutes ago, RememberSchiff said:

I hope the judge sequesters the "relevant" parties into a room to amend the incomplete, problematic Mar 1, "Revised Plan" into a complete, acceptable "Compromise Plan" by May 1. There will be no extensions. If a "Compromise Plan" is not accepted, the alternatives for the Debtor are to exit bankruptcy or liquidate.

I don't see this happening, given the sum and (lack of) substance at Wednesday's hearing. I think the TCC is heading for the estimation trial to get relative clarity on the aggregate dollar value, which can then drive people to the table. Currently, there is nothing to compel anyone anywhere, and the judge was basically just admonishing. I don't see a belly up to the bar and show your cards moment happening "voluntarily" in the near term. Not from what I heard and saw. The more I look into it, the more I like estimation. I don't mean for me as a claimant, necessarily, but as a "Solomon and the baby" moment. Let's see who twitches, blinks and tells.

[RememberSchiff]

The "estimation trial" seems a formality as both sides have completed professional, third-party appraisals of National HA and local council properties. Split difference and you have estimate.

[ThenNow]

7 minutes ago, RememberSchiff said:

The "estimation trial" seems a formality as both sides have completed professional, third-party appraisals of National HA and local council properties. Split difference and you have estimate.

Yes. Asset valuations. But, that's only half of the equation. This is about valuing the claims, which would inform what's "needed" from those assets to make a deal. 

[CynicalScouter]

1 hour ago, RememberSchiff said:

The "estimation trial" seems a formality as both sides have completed professional, third-party appraisals of National HA and local council properties. Split difference and you have estimate.

If you read the motion papers, ASSET estimation isn't even listed. The focus is entirely on the amount/value of the sexual abuse claims.

The proceeding is for an "Estimation of Personal Injury Claims".

This has 0 to do with properties.

Edited March 19, 2021 by CynicalScouter

[DavidLeeLambert]

27 minutes ago, RememberSchiff said:

The "estimation trial" seems a formality as both sides have completed professional, third-party appraisals of National HA and local council properties. Split difference and you have estimate.

No, that's not what the "estimation" would be for.

Right now we can multiply the number of claims times the Michigan State University settlement amount per survivor in the Larry Nassar and say the total combined liability of all parties should be about $155 billion. BSA and Local Council assets combined are literally 1%-3% of that. Even Century's reserves are only about 50% of that.

Or we can multiply it by an average over some group of Catholic diocese abuse settlements, various ones over a series of years, which I think I saw above in this thread as $200,000 per survivor, and get an overall figure of $17.2 billion. Even for that, without some contribution from COs, insurers, or both, under complete liquidation of the BSA and LCs, using an optimistic interpretation of the value of available assets and leaving the bank with nothing, survivors would get less than 10% of that.

But maybe the claimants in this case are, on average, different from the settling plaintiffs in some of the earlier class-actions cases. Maybe some fraction of them are completely making the claim up. The claim form invited claims of youth-on-youth abuse; maybe that's a significant fraction of the claims, and maybe there isn't an actual comparable settlement for that kind of abuse. 

So the estimation proceeding will look at questions like:

• If a typical claim went to jury trial, how likely is it that the jury would find damages, and, if so, how much?
• If all the claims from a particular state went to class-action jury trial, what would the total judgement be?
• If all the claims against a particular council went to class-action jury trial, what would the total judgement be?
• If all the claims relating to abuse in a particular year (hence covered by a particular insurer, who may have had an overall policy limit in that year) went to class-action jury trial, what would the total judgement be?

And to get to that point, it will probably look into further questions like:

• How much, on average, have the victims spent on counseling and other medical care so far? How much can they expect to spend over the rest of their lives?
• What is the economic cost, over a lifetime of work, of being less confident in one's career (or even unable to work) as a consequence of abuse at the hands of Boy Scout leaders?
• How does that vary based on the seriousness of the abuse?
• Or based on the strength of the relation between the abuser and Scouting? (Consider the difference between "a Scoutmaster registered for several years, who had been reported for abuse before" and "an unregistered adult who had acquired a uniform second-hand and was approaching various organizations, trying to organize a Troop")
• And all the statistics we've seen already, but perhaps in more detail and with some of the "unknown"s cleaned up a bit.

As well as legal/policy questions like:

• How likely is it that Statute of Limitation widows will open up further?
• Are there loopholes (such as "repressed memory" in the existing Statute of Limitations landscape that a significant number of the otherwise-barred claims could use, based on what they say already?

[CynicalScouter]

2 hours ago, RememberSchiff said:

1. We cannot say we will run out of money in August and then ask for an extension past that date.

Even if run out of money is true, that refers (I believe) to BSA cashflow/cash on hand.

For example, I could see BSA saying that it ran out of cash on hand in August and then had to

1. stop paying its current bills in order to fund the bankruptcy proceeding
2. had to take out a loan
3. had to sell items NOW to pay for the proceeding. For example, the University of Scouting building gets sold this summer and rather than the proceeds going into some Settlement Fund it now goes direct to pay the legal bills.

This is something I plan on asking some bankruptcy lawyers I worked with back in the day: what happens if the debtor in a bankruptcy proceeding cannot afford to stay in bankruptcy.

One possibility is that the TCC attorneys and the BSA attorneys become a class of creditors in their own rights

[RememberSchiff]

Thank you both for schooling me on "estimation trial".

 

[ThenNow]

14 minutes ago, RememberSchiff said:

Thank you both for schooling me on "estimation trial".

"There are no stupid questions," as they used to tell us. We all benefited from DLL's excellent explanation. 

[ThenNow]

51 minutes ago, DavidLeeLambert said:

the "estimation" would be for.

Do you have any more detailed knowledge of the inner workings of past cases? I note that a few are month-long trials and we have a massive case, comparatively.