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SUSE's Reply in Support of Motion to Lift Stay, as text

By Pamela Jones et al.

Here, as promised, is the SUSE Reply [PDF] about lifting the bankruptcy stay, more properly titled SUSE's Reply in Support of its Motion for Relief from the Automatic Stay to Complete International Arbitration. This document is in response to SCO Chapter 11 Trustee Edward Cahn's Objection to SUSE's motion, and they do not hold back. Most interestingly, they highlight the GPL and what it means for SCO's copyright claims. The theme is simple: it's not fair for SCO to get to go forward on its copyright claims without letting SUSE go forward too on its related claims:

The SCO Trustee asserts that SCO's claims against Novell and IBM "should be pursued aggressively." (Objection ¶ 15.) Yet the SCO Trustee is attempting to prevent SUSE from pursuing claims in the Arbitration that would undercut SCO's claims. The SCO Trustee proposes the ideal scenario for any litigant: freedom to sue opponents with immunity from countersuits. The goal is clear: SCO hopes to obtain a favorable ruling in the Utah Litigation that would increase the value of its copyright claims, without having to confront troubling (to SCO) UnitedLinux questions that may severely undermine those claims.

Such a use of the stay is wholly inconsistent with the stay's legitimate purposes: preserving the estate and giving the debtor a breathing space.

Bankruptcy stay isn't supposed to be used to provide a debtor with a litigation advantage, only breathing room to get reorganized. Heaven only knows, SUSE points out, SCO has had plenty of breathing room, more than two years of it, with no positive movement toward reorganization yet on the horizon.

Full post as published by Groklaw on December 25, 2009 (boomark / email).