Re: 6 Octubre - Mediación 3pm (9am USA)
Post de Patience (como siempre Brillante):
My main concern with the debtors' intention to "de-link" (of mediation and plan confirmation) is two fold: (1 ) such "de-coupling" will "taking bargaining chips off the negotiation table" (as EC pointed out in the Response). This is what I meant when I said in another post (Brief Comments on Debtors' Statement) "... the debtors were eventually trying to throw SNHs off the bus too. It's part of the posturing before the mediation..." However, I should expressed myself more clearly (by separating the two - mediation and confirmation, some leverages will be lost for both SNHs and EC). (2) it will have the impact (together with restricting mediation participants) of limiting settlement options during the mediation. I've always thought the mediation will have reverberating effects throughout waterfall and distribution chain (I called it the forces of interplay by and among various players). If the mediation and plan confirmation were de-linked, the reverberating effect will be gone too. I'm glad EC addressed both my concerns and pointed out the flaws in the debtors' arguments.
Some quotes from EC Response:
"Limiting the mediation, as the Debtors’ propose, only to the dispute between the Equity Committee and the Settlement Note Holders will take bargaining chips that could have been used in settlement talks off the negotiation table and move them into the courtroom."
"... the mediation should involve all major parties in interest to this bankruptcy proceeding, including... The mediation should be completed before a revised plan is presented for confirmation so that maximum flexibility is maintained to make changes in the plan to accommodate a settlement.
The Debtors’ proposal for a truncated mediation of only the dispute between the Equity Committee and the Settlement Note Holders will decidedly not clear away all unresolved issues in this case. ...
Even more importantly, limiting the mediation as the Debtors propose and proceeding with a parallel confirmation of the Debtors’ revised plan would restrict options for settlement."
EC also addressed my concern about allocating reserves and the ownership issue of Reorganized debtors. EC essentially posted the same question to the debtors "how's that possible as a practical matter" in the midst of mediation on unresolved significant, material issues?
In general, EC did another piece of great work.