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Novell expresses "concerns" about Mesirow's bill - and more bills flood in

By Pamela Jones et al.

Novell has filed a Statement [PDF] expressing concerns about the cool half million that Mesirow Financials has submitted a bill for. It would like to express its concern over SCO's "astonishing" level of spending:

2. As a substantial creditor and party-in-interest, Novell is concerned by the astonishing level of fees and expenses generated at the Debtors' behest, given the lack of progress in these chapter 11 cases.

Novell details its concern regarding the Mesirow bill: it spent over 600 hours and in excess of $250,000 on analysis of a deal "for which no definitive value has been realized." He means the now dormant, withdrawn and maybe totally dead York deal, the one the York lawyer and SCO told the court had to be done by the end of December or it was off. Since the motion asking to do the deal was withdrawn, Novell thinks half a million "may be excessive." Hunh. You think?

And here come more bills from more professionals just doing what they do in the ordinary course for a fee, or so they represent to the court. There's an Affidavit [PDF] from Jackson Hole Advisors, for example, telling the court that its usual fee is $2,650. Um, would that be per year, per month, per day, per hour, or per minute? They fail to say, which leaves the door to the remaining, though rapidly diminishing, SCO monies nicely wide open, I'd say. Novell, of course, views it as its money SCO is squandering.

Novell expresses concern about appropriateness of the activities, too, on top of its worries about amounts. Mesirow spent over 350 hours and $100,000 on court filings. That's not even counting the York deal. Might that be duplicative of what the SCO lawyers are doing? SCO only has, what is it now, four law firms? Mesirow is a financial advisor. Further, Novell believes it might be worthwhile to "inquire whether Mesirow should be doing certain subsets of this work at all." Novell points out that some tasks may be "overstaffed." This appears to be draining the estate. And why might that be? Novell has an idea.

Full post as published by Groklaw on January 09, 2008 (boomark / email).