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Novell's Objection to SCO's Motion to Pay the Plan Sponsor, as text

By Pamela Jones et al.

Here is Novell's Objection to SCO's Motion to Approve Settlement Compensation or Sale Compensation and Expense to Plan Sponsor [PDF] as text. Our thanks to kh for the OCR.

Of all the over-the-top ideas SCO has floated, this SCO motion Novell is objecting to is certainly one of the boldest. Everyone who could object objected, including the US Trustee's Office and IBM, and SCO, seeing the storm clouds, told the bankruptcy court at the hearing on April 2nd that it will come up with a "better" reorganization plan, so it seems likely this SCO motion will be altered too.

We'll see if the new plan is better. It could hardly be worse. But since SCO is marking on a curve, "better" it may indeed prove to be. I doubt it, though, since SCO's unrealistic dreams and the bankruptcy court's less exciting goals do not seem to be in perfect alignment. The official story is that the lender decided to change the deal to one involving a sale of assets, not a loan, so it's back to the drawing board for the reorganization, so I'm assuming that will impact this motion too, but I won't be sure until we have the transcript of the hearing.

So, another reorganization plan bites the dust. At this rate, SCO should be able to run through all its money just filing and then withdrawing reorganization plans.

That means this document may now be useful mainly for historical purposes and to get a measure of SCO's sincerity about ever emerging from Chapter 11. It may also prove useful to the few in the media who, after all these years of watching SCO's machinations, still write down SCO's every announcement of big money coming its way as if its claims had floated down from heaven itself and therefore must be true.

Novell fairly mocks SCO's motion. The opening paragraph says it all:

The Motion is nothing more than a giveaway by the Debtors in their desperate quest to find a way to keep alive their hopes for a big payday in litigation against Novell and certain other parties. As the Debtors have shown previously, they will accede to nearly any demand by a perceived "white knight" to keep their dreams alive no matter how limited the actual or potential benefit to their estates. But for obvious reasons bankruptcy law does not authorize debtors in possession to make gifts, or even just make bad deals. The Court should, therefore, deny the Motion.

Either way, improper gift or just a stupid business deal, Novell says it shouldn't happen.

Full post as published by Groklaw on April 08, 2008 (boomark / email).