Venerando me reitero esto ha sido una pequeña batalla... queda mucha leña que cortar...el POR no va a ningun sitio.
LEED BIEN EL ULTIMO PARRAFO DE THJMW
Times are from the audio recording:
http://www.viewip.net/WMI/Hearing/2010-05-05/20100505.mp3
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0:20:23
Walrath (ruling on WMI motion to appoint Blackstone; objection by CA DTSC):
I'll grant the Debtors' motion. Apparently the Debtor, though forewarned, doesn't think it needs to amend the Disclosure Statement, but I'm not going to decide that issue today and I'll decide it when and if the California Department of Toxic Substances Control files an objection to the Disclosure Statement.
0:20:44
1:51:34
Rosen, WMI:
A lot has been said by the Equity Committee counsel, I think hoping that something will stick on the wall here, but we cannot help, Your Honor, that Venable was dismissed as counsel. We cannot help that we met with Venable and provided them with information, told them the merits and the deficiencies of the claims and causes of action. We cannot help that Venable, perhaps, has not provided that information to Susman Godfrey at this time. With respect to the FDIC, Your Honor, a lot seems to be made that the FDIC has not executed the proposed settlement agreement, Your Honor. As the FDIC has said, and we have said, several times subsequently, Your Honor, to this court, there is no dispute that we have an agreement, it's just the final words are still being worked on with the FDIC and we hope, and we expect, to file something with the court in the very near future along the lines of an amended Disclosure Statement which contains some additional information that people are looking for, and if we can help my friends from California in the Department of Toxic substances we'll include something there with respect to the BKK litigation. But we hope, and we do expect, Your Honor, that this issue will be fully and finally resolved.
With respect to the Plan process, Your Honor, we filed the motion with the court that sets forth a time frame and specifically - and counsel said here "nothing has been set for confirmation" - July 20th, Your Honor, that is the date that is contained in the motion. We asked for that period of time so that people would have an opportunity between May 19th and July 20th to do whatever discovery is necessary associated with the Plan, the Global Settlement Agreement, and that we wouldn't be here asking for a delay of a hundred and fifty days. I fall back, Your Honor, on what I said before, this is all interwoven, the Equity Committee has a plan. The plan is delay, the plan is to try and move forward elsewhere as Mr. Lauira went into. The plan is to ask this court not to do anything, not to allow any party to move forward with their rights under Chapter 11 while they do whatever they can to dismiss the management of this company and to try and have this company abandon the global settlement that has been reached after 19 months of hard work. Thank you.
1:54:06
John Clarke, FDIC-R:
I just needed to respond to Mr. Rosen's comments. I would refer back to the comments that I made at the omnibus hearing on April 6th as to the status. We don't have any changed status to report from those comments and the record stands for itself as to what I said then. Thank you Your Honor.
Walrath:
You want to remind us what you said then?
John Clarke, FDIC-R:
We said that there were still significant open issues with the parties to the proposed settlement, that we would continue to have discussions with those parties, that we've not yet resolved those issues, and there are other conditions to the settlement that still haven't been satisfied, but we're working with the goal of trying to achieve all of that and get the proposed settlement agreed to and put into this court.
1:54:58
Walrath:
Well, let me make my ruling. First, a preliminary issue: the filing of a motion to appoint a trustee will not eliminate the need for the court to address the Equity Committee's motion to appoint an examiner. I made that point the other day, and it could certainly lead to strategic filings of motions for appointment of a trustee, just to defeat a motion for appointment of an examiner. So that is of no moment to my ruling on this motion. As I have recently ruled orally, so you can't really rely on it but, I will follow myself, I do believe that 1104c2 gives the court some discretion even if the debt level is reached. The discretion is that the court has the discretion to determine what appropriate investigation of the Debtor should occur. And that if the court determines that there is no appropriate investigation that needs to be conducted, the court has the discretion to deny the appointment of an examiner.
The courts have looked at various factors in determining whether an appropriate investigation is warranted. They include: whether that investigation, that same investigation, has already been conducted by other parties; they have looked at whether the the appointment of an examiner will increase costs and cause a delay with no corresponding benefits; the courts have looked at the timing of the motion; have looked at whether the motion is a litigation tactic, which includes consideration of the timing, not just how soon it is in a case but whether it is timed such as to evidence a litigation tactic. I think in this case it’s a very close call. I don’t find in this case that it’s a litigation tactic, although it's been suggested that the shareholders are simply seeking to delay things while they replace management, so that they can have - excuse me, directors, the board of directors - so that they can tank the settlement. I’ll accept their motion as being - as they state it – an effort to have an investigation conducted by an independent third party to determine whether or not the plan proposed by the Debtor, or this "global settlement" referred to by the parties, is appropriate or whether instead prosecution of those claims would result in a greater recovery for the estate.
Notwithstanding that, reviewing the factors, I think it is clear that the motion has to be denied at this point. First, it is clear to me that this Debtor has been investigated to death and I'm sure that even the most experienced and talented examiner that the United States Trustee could appoint would not find any stone unturned. The investigations have been conducted not only by the Debtor and the Creditors' Committee but the Equity Committee itself has done some of this, the Office of Thrift Supervision, the FDIC, the Government Task Force, including the US Attorney for the Western District of Washington, the Department of Labor, the Department of Justice, the FBI, the IRS, the SEC, the Attorney General for the State of New York, the class action plaintiffs, the US Congress, Treasury, and the President's Financial Fraud Task Force have all taken a look at Washington Mutual.
It is true that their investigations exceeded the scope of what this court need concern itself with. They have talked about systemic problems, they have investigated possible criminal actions by the parties. In this case, the court is limited to, as the Equity Committee suggests, the value of the assets and how they will be distributed in this bankruptcy case. I don't think it is fair to the creditors in this case to be saddled with the cost of an investigation into systemic problems that would only benefit future parties but not benefit the parties in this case. In this case specifically the Debtor and the Creditors' Committee have investigated the specific assets owned by the Debtor or that the Debtor claims it owns. The Debtor have vigorously appeared in and prosecuted its position in several adversaries in this case in addition to filing a claim in the FDIC Receivership and prosecuting claims it has in that forum.
2:00:12
All of that information should be available to the Equity Committee, and I don't want to hear about obstacles being placed in their path to getting full and open access to that information, whether it's documentary or interviews with the Debtors' management or others who have conducted these investigations. And the same goes for the Creditors' Committee, who's been actively involved in all of this. Again, the appointment of an examiner here really would - an examiner really would only have the task of reviewing what others have already done - I don't think there's any original investigation left to be done. So I think that's just a waste of assets. Secondly, I think the Equity Committee is fully able to conduct the investigation that it seeks to have the examiner conduct. It has the benefit of Rule 2004, it has the benefit of the discovery rules because there are contested matters presently and anticipated in which the Equity Committee could fully avail itself of that discovery. But again, I'm strongly urging the [Creditors'] Committee and the Debtor to provide all the information to the Equity Committee without testing the court's patience with discovery motions. Again, the appointment of a third party to conduct that investigation and to report to the court its conclusion is no substitute for the adversarial process extant in bankruptcy court, and the duty of the court, after hearing the views of the opposing parties, to make a decision as to what assets the Debtor owns, what the value of those assets is, whether a settlement is reasonable, and resolving a conflicting claim to those assets - to ownership to those assets. Finally, the timing of the motion. I don't think that this is a factor that I'll rely on in this case. I think that in other cases it's been evident that parties have been litigating for many many months and only at the last minute when a party thought it was going to lose did it file the motion for a tactical reason. In this case the Equity Committee is relatively new to this case, only since January, and I don't think that the timing was meant to - is too late to consider it nor was it meant as a litigation strategy. Um, let's see... I don't know whether... I'm not going to accept the Debtors' arguments or the [Creditors'] Committees' arguments regarding delay here being a negative. I'm not sure how quickly the Debtor, honestly, can proceed with its proposed Plan, but at any rate I think there is sufficient time - should be sufficient time - for the Equity Committee to conduct whatever investigation it feels is relevant. So I will deny the motion.
2:03:40