Chapter 11 Announced - Part 6 - Plan 5.0/TCC Plan TBD

[CynicalScouter]

Just now, fred8033 said:

... but ... "changing details"? ... submitting for claimants that had changed their minds?  ... duplicate? (depending why?  to get numbers up?) ... saying claims would be anonymous?  

The lawyers will claim they didn't do it, the aggregators did, I suspect.

[ThenNow]

16 minutes ago, CynicalScouter said:

Correct, anyone can file anything. But the motion to dismiss will appear based on the SoL.

As I said. I like when you affirm other people before refuting or saying why it ain’t so, Joe.

[ThenNow]

39 minutes ago, CynicalScouter said:

It suggests
that attorneys made a proper decision under the circumstances to protect their clients’ rights."

Yes. It is their suggestion. I say, “Balderdash!” Their actions, may not only have been fraudulent and unethical, but in direct contravention of the judge’s stern admonition. “I better not see attorneys signing 100’s of POCs!” Get a bloody pen and sit down for an extended period of writer’s cramp. And, who gave the aggregators those scripts and questionnaires? Are we to assume the law firms had zero input into how this was managed? Did they know about the bonus structure? Did Mr. AVA do this stuff for the majority of his career? Meh.

54 minutes ago, CynicalScouter said:

How dark and wide does the cloud need to be before the judge issues an order asking for ALL claims to be vetted now? This is the conundrum.

Exactly my point. (Omitting references to my favorite falconry bird.) If they bring the storm down on all of us...shame upon shame. Disgust upon disgust. If it’s all true, they must face serious discipline, censure and fines. Maybe suspension and/or disbarment, depending on their level of knowledge and involvement. I find this horrifying without considering the impact on my cohort and me. Meh to infinity and beyond. 

Edited September 17, 2021 by ThenNow

[Eagle1993]

I have a hard time seeing the judge make any changes to voting or pushing out claimants who don't meet the SOL window.  She is all about speed to resolution now and these could cause major delays.  I expect she will include SOL claims in the vote and let the trustee adjust payments.  I expect she will say there is likely some fraud, but not enough to stop this process.  I think the SOL/claimant debate will fall on death ears.  If she was concerned she could have prioritized the hearing for that a while ago (I believe these issues have been brought up many time).  Clearly I could be wrong, I just think she will lean on the trustee to sort it out during the payment cycle.

Now ... she will be worried about anything that could either result in a rejected vote (TCC objections) or appeals (US Trustee).  I think those are much bigger deals than the SOL/claimant debate. 

She may be upset with the TCC as she will say you approved the RSA, now what's wrong?  I understand the Hartford deal was supposed to be excluded ... we will see if she is ok with that answer.

She has never addressed the US Trustee's objection.  I have to think she is watching Purdue Pharma and must be wondering if the DOJ will appeal her rulings.  I get the sense that Congress is paying more and more attention to channeling injunctions and the DOJ is getting more upset how the bankruptcy courts are being abused.  

Based on the RSA hearing, my bet is she rams Plan 5 through to a vote but removes the Coalition payments.   She will want to get something to a vote soon.  It will look like a short term win.  She will take the risk of the US Trustee appeal and a rejected vote (perhaps over 50% but not to 66%).  Come Thanksgiving time, we may be looking at a deal that was rejected by claimants and is ready for appeal by a US Trustee. 

[CynicalScouter]

The TCC is now going after e aggregators as well.

https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/b1ef0e34-e1b2-4e08-8518-ba80917eb5c1_6271.pdf

In short the insurers have gotten permission to depose and get document production from the aggregators and the insurers have to share what they get with TCC.

however in the unlikely event the insurers don’t pursue discovery the TCC wants a placeholder: if the insurance companies don’t depose the TCC will.

Why would they want this? If the insurance companies cut a deal that leaves the TCC all alone.

this could be nothing but the TCC being safe or it could mean that they’ve got wind of century ready to cut a deal.

Edited September 17, 2021 by CynicalScouter

[Muttsy]

2 hours ago, Eagle1993 said:

 

I have a hard time seeing the judge make any changes to voting or pushing out claimants who don't meet the SOL window.  She is all about speed to resolution now and these could cause major delays.  I expect she will include SOL claims in the vote and let the trustee adjust payments.  I expect she will say there is likely some fraud, but not enough to stop this process.  I think the SOL/claimant debate will fall on death ears.  If she was concerned she could have prioritized the hearing for that a while ago (I believe these issues have been brought up many time).  Clearly I could be wrong, I just think she will lean on the trustee to sort it out during the payment cycle.

 

I tend to agree. The aggregator fraud argument is a red-herring. Bad form for insurance companies to attack abuse victims so attack the lawyers instead. There are ways and means to weed out fraudulent claims. There are companies that provide these services in mass tort cases. She won’t be swayed to wade into  that morass. A claim may not have been adequately vetted by the lawyers but that doesn’t mean the client’s claim is bogus. Also CR 11 apples to pleadings in courts not to proofs of claim in bankruptcy. Lawyers who file pleadings without doing due diligence are permitted to cure it through amendment of the pleading. A lawyer who blows a statute because the client retained him six hours before midnight will not be sanctioned for filing the skeletal lawsuit. He will be sued or sanctioned for failing to protect his client’s legal rights if he fails to file. 
 

Finally, she will not engage in a how many angels dancing on the head of a pin debate about weighted voting based on SOL. SOL she will say is to be resolved through the TDP after confirmation, if at all. I seem to remember a remark she made very early in the case that she didn’t think SOL should factor at all in this case. 
 

The most you might see her do is allow for the $3500 “quick pay” check box on the ballot. If the claimant elects quick pay then their vote does not get counted. 

[Muttsy]

The non-debtor releases are problematic as noted earlier. For it to work under the “best interests of the creditors test” the claimants with claims involving Council XYZ, the claimants would need an XYZ contribution at least as big as he would get in an XYZ Ch 11. Same with COs. The LC contributions don’t follow any logical pattern I can discern. These may need to be broken out claimant/council/assets with 265 or however many pools of claims and those claimants would be paid in part out of their local council asset pool.  Not one big global pool because that could never garner enough votes. If I’ve got a great claim against say, GNC, why would I vote to support a plan that makes me share with someone abused in a small asset council?

This entire discussion is academic because there isn’t enough money for this to work except maybe a BSA only plan. Under Plan 5.0 the most horrible child rape case you can imagine which happened in the best open state would at the very best receive $160,000 before attorneys fees  That person is going to want to get in to the tort system and light them up  

 

BSA needs to be removed from the picture one way or another. It’s control of the case must end for the case to move forward. Global is never going to happen. The Coalition people are flat out lying when they go on tv and say there will be tens of billions more. The new settlement with Hartford puts the lie to those representations. That’s the only fraud going on in this case. 
 

 

[ThenNow]

1 hour ago, Muttsy said:

A claim may not have been adequately vetted by the lawyers but that doesn’t mean the client’s claim is bogus.

Uh huh. It also doesn’t mean it isn’t, if they tried to retract, had the material facts (or absence thereof) filled in by an aggregator or attorney, etc.

1 hour ago, Muttsy said:

That’s the only fraud going on in this case. 

You sure about that? Are you just being dramatic? Not poking, just asking.

Also, does Rule 9011 apply here as to attorney conduct, signatures on claims and documents...that may lead to sanctions? 

[CynicalScouter]

Going to be coming in all weekend long I think.

latest: insurers demanded documents and disclosure from Eric Green the proposed settlement trustee. Reading between the lines of the brief he told the insurers to go away.

The insurers are insisting on discovery about Green and his ties to Brown Rudnick, why he was rejected as a mediator, etc. AND they want the disclosure before the September. 21 hearing. 
 

https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/503ae7b0-6c44-4cc8-96aa-5377439f7252_6282.pdf

[CynicalScouter]

Another:

 

they are demanding disclosure from BSA about why the coalition  plan to get paid which the judge previously rejected in the RSA  is being put back in as a plan 5.0

again they want the judge to order disclosure over the weekend

https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/358b9ecb-570b-495c-920e-cdd2caca3339_6284.pdf

[CynicalScouter]

Once again BSA is stretching mediation privilege to the limit.  Now it is Green, who again was NEVER a mediator or a mediation party, claiming mediation privilege as to why he won’t turn anything over

“Mr. Green, for his part, has asserted mediation privilege to withhold hundreds of documents when he was never appointed mediator of anything. The Moving Insurers attempted to resolve the issues covered in the Motion to Compel with Mr. Green prior to filing. But Moving Insurers were communicating with counsel for Mr. Green until September 16, 2021 when Mr. Green’s counsel only then confirmed that Mr. Green was not a party to an executed mediation agreement in these cases.”

[Muttsy]

Not sure of anything. But hard evidence has been in scant supply in this case about anything and I don’t see that changing. Without evidence our minds are left with intuition which I once heard was “intelligence in a hurry.”

[fred8033]

Pending request from Deck Shifflet to depose Jackie Lemanczyk about the missing appendix in the aggregator's manual.  

[CynicalScouter]

BSA wants the judge to order the insurers to stop asking for discovery.

I am not kidding 

https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/a142d925-ebd5-4709-b7ad-d99cdde395e8_6288.pdf

They want the judge to issue and order declaring almost everything is mediation privileged therefore the insurance companies must stop asking.

[ThenNow]

12 hours ago, Muttsy said:

But hard evidence has been in scant supply in this case about anything and I don’t see that changing.

Well, that’s not entirely true. Monthly, we can say with certainty the amounts being expended for professional fees and costs. That’s something. May it bring you comfort and sweet dreams. Or not.  

PS - This is not a cast aspersion, rather a statement of fact to sooth my friend in these times of fear and uncertainty.

Edited September 18, 2021 by ThenNow