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| More Bills and a Hearing Schedule as SCO's Money Flies the Coop |
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Thursday, June 12 2008 @ 10:10 PM EDT
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Lots of filings in the bankruptcy, but not many that matter. The SCO enablers want their money, and I would guess they'd like it sooner rather than later, all things considered. Mesirow has filed another bill, and so has Berger Singerman, and Tanner has an Order that it can expand its role on SCO's behalf. We have also the hearing schedule for the June 17 hearing.
What will be heard that day are two matters: the SCO motion to extend its period of exclusivity, which Novell has objected to, and the quarterly fee application matters.
Berger Singerman wants more money. This time, the bill is for $16,464.50 and $136.59 in expenses, which sounds reasonable, except when you think that Novell is facing getting a lot less than it might be due, depending on how the Utah District Court rules (pant, pant), and that Berger Singerman has already filed bills totaling $1,010,006.25 and expenses in the amount of $26,359.36. If you add this new bill, the grand total is $1,026,470.75 and $26,495.95 in expenses. This is only one of SCO's law firms. And, as Novell has pointed out, there is still no reorganization plan, just aborted plans and motions -- four "false starts", Novell says, and I'd call that kind -- in that they were never likely to go anywhere. But SCO was billed for them all. Their army of lawyers and financial wizards and accountants busily worked on them all, one after the other, and then sent SCO bills. And yes, once again, the largest category of work in this bill is work on some kind of plan. A more cynical Novell might wonder, what is SCO really paying for? And maybe why didn't the court put money into a trust to protect Novell?
The very controversial SCO motion to pay York a breakup fee for a deal that never happened, as Novell designates it, has been moved back to a hearing on July 15 at 10 AM, by the way. If they keep moving it back, SCO will for sure have no money left, and it will then be moot. Here are all the filings:
488 -
Filed & Entered: 06/09/2008
Order
Docket Text: Order Approving Expansion of The Scope of Employment of Tanner LC As Accountants To The Debtors Nunc Pro Tunc To April 2, 2008 (related document(s)[461] ) Order Signed on 6/8/2008. (JSJ, )
489 -
Filed & Entered: 06/09/2008
Certificate of Service
Docket Text: Certificate of Service Regarding [Signed] Order Approving Expansion of the Scope and Employment of Tanner LC as Accountants to the Debtors Nunc Pro Tunc to April 2, 2008 (related document(s)[488] ) Filed by The SCO Group, Inc.. (Werkheiser, Rachel)
490 -
Filed & Entered: 06/09/2008
Certificate of No Objection
Docket Text: Certificate of No Objection (No Order Required) Regarding Eighth Interim Application of Berger Singerman, P.A. for Compensation for Services and Reimbursement of Expenses, as Co-Counsel to the Debtors in Possession for the Period from April 1, 2008 through April 30, 2008 (related document(s)[475] ) Filed by The SCO Group, Inc.. (Attachments: # (1) Certificate of Service and Service List) (Werkheiser, Rachel)
492 -
Filed & Entered: 06/11/2008
Certificate of No Objection
Docket Text: Certificate of No Objection (No Order Required) Regarding Fifth Monthly Fee Application of Mesirow Financial Consulting, LLC as Financial Advisors to the Debtors for Compensation and Reimbursement of Expenses for the Period from April 1, 2008 through April 30, 2008 (related document(s)[476] ) Filed by The SCO Group, Inc.. (Attachments: # (1) Certificate of Service and Service List) (Werkheiser, Rachel)
493 -
Filed & Entered: 06/11/2008
Application for Compensation
Docket Text: Monthly Application for Compensation (Sixth) as Financial Advisors to the Debtors and for Reimbursement of Expenses for the Period from May 1, 2008 through May 31, 2008 Filed by Mesirow Financial Consulting, LLC. Objections due by 7/1/2008. (Attachments: # (1) Notice # (2) Exhibit A # (3) Exhibit B # (4) Exhibit C# (5) Certificate of Service and Service List) (O'Neill, James)
494 -
Filed & Entered: 06/12/2008
Affidavit/Declaration of Service
Docket Text: Affidavit/Declaration of Service of Kimberly A. Beck re: Response to the Debtors' Second Motion to Extend Exclusivity (related document(s)[491] ) Filed by Novell, Inc.. (Greecher, Sean)
495 -
Filed & Entered: 06/12/2008
Certificate of No Objection
Docket Text: Certificate of No Objection (No Order Required) Regarding Seventh Monthly Application of Pachulski Stang Ziehl & Jones LLP, as Co-Counsel to the Debtors and Debtors in Possession, for the Period from March 1, 2008 through March 31, 2008 (related document(s)[477] ) Filed by The SCO Group, Inc.. (Attachments: # (1) Certificate of Service and Service List) (Werkheiser, Rachel)
496 -
Filed & Entered: 06/12/2008
Certification of Counsel
Docket Text: Certification of Counsel Regarding Omnibus Order Approving Certain Quarterly Fee Applications (related document(s)[462], [474], [479], [460], [478] ) Filed by The SCO Group, Inc.. (Attachments: # (1) Exhibit A) (Werkheiser, Rachel)
497 -
Filed & Entered: 06/12/2008
Notice of Matters Scheduled for Hearing (B)
Docket Text: Notice of Agenda of Matters Scheduled for Hearing Filed by The SCO Group, Inc.. Hearing scheduled for 6/17/2008 at 02:00 PM at US Bankruptcy Court, 824 Market St., 6th Fl., Courtroom #3, Wilmington, Delaware. (Attachments: # (1) Exhibit A # (2) Certificate of Service and Service List) (Werkheiser, Rachel)
498 -
Filed & Entered: 06/12/2008
Application for Compensation
Docket Text: Monthly Application for Compensation (Ninth) and Reimbursement of Expenses, as Co-Counsel to the Debtors in Possession for the Period from May 1, 2008 through May 31, 2008 Filed by Berger Singerman, P.A.. Objections due by 7/2/2008. (Attachments: # (1) Notice # (2) Exhibit A # (3) Certificate of Service and Service List) (Werkheiser, Rachel)
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| Authored by: BC on Thursday, June 12 2008 @ 10:17 PM EDT |
| Corrections go here [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: entre on Thursday, June 12 2008 @ 10:31 PM EDT |
Current events of the day...
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, June 12 2008 @ 10:37 PM EDT |
As an experimental canonical thread.
---
--Bill P, not a lawyer. Question the answers, especially if I give some.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, June 12 2008 @ 10:38 PM EDT |
Please use the newspick title as your comment's title.
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--Bill P, not a lawyer. Question the answers, especially if I give some.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: kawabago on Thursday, June 12 2008 @ 10:46 PM EDT |
No business plan, no prospects, no products, nothing left but spite for Novell.
It should be really fun to watch the principles squirm under criminal charges
when SCO has no money to defend them. Yarrow will pin it all on Darl of course.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: bbaston on Thursday, June 12 2008 @ 11:35 PM EDT |
| For Groklaw's benefit - whether participating over at OASIS or just passing by -
here's the place to post.
PJ reminds those of us monitoring the discussion
to
"Stay polite at all times, of course, if you say
anything, and you needn't say anything, but do follow along and please keep us
posted on anything you see that sounds
peculiar."
OASIS discussion list for ODF
Implementation, Interoperability and Conformance
Some relevent OASIS
announcements include the ones here and her
e.
---
IMBW, IANAL2, IMHO, IAVO
imaybewrong, iamnotalawyertoo, inmyhumbleopinion, iamveryold [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: bezz on Friday, June 13 2008 @ 12:04 AM EDT |
The June 17 hearing is only about SCO's Motion to Extend Exclusivity and and
quarterly fees for failed efforts? That is some kind of joke, right?
I
have a few more questions for the Trustee:
Why haven't the unsecured
creditors said a word? Is this not worth their time or could it be because some
of the larger are connected to BSF, Microsoft and Sun?
Have you looked at
the assets left available for paying potential preferential creditors? Please
discount the restricted cash and other illiquid assets when you look.
How
many times does SCO get to fail and change its definition for what constitutes a
realistic reorganization plan? We have been through two slaps in the creditors
faces and promised a third that would have "plenty of cash for everyone" by May
11.
Now we are talking about another SCO request to extend exclusivity?
Where is the action to enforce the April 2 threat to request an independent
fiduciary?
You have a staff who are familiar with this case. It is a
backlog and its assets are being dissipated. Don't try to claim an
unfamiliarity with a high profile case for failure to act.
I have worked
from within the Federal Government. Have you ever heard of a Congressional?
How many Representatives do you think Groklaw's members represent? How about a
Senatorial? Think maybe somebody might want to write Robert Byrd (D-WV) or Joe
Biden (D-DE) or Arlen Spector (R-PA) over this? [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, June 13 2008 @ 12:17 AM EDT |
Does anyone have an estimate for how much money SCO has left? Can we project
that out to where it's all gone? I think that for this estimate we should ignore
whether any of that money belongs to Novell (SCO certainly is).
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: sproggit on Friday, June 13 2008 @ 01:47 AM EDT |
Here's a really silly theory.
We probably all remember the acrimonious split between Ralph Yarro III and the
Canopy Group. We know that Yarro took a large chunk of SCO Stock as part of his
severance and at the time we discussed the relative worthlessness of that stock
given the suicide-run legal cases in which SCO was then embroiled.
Just suppose that Yarro is now one of the major shareholders in SCO - perhaps
with Darl and a few others he has access to 50.1% of the voting stock.
Yarro and McBride will know their stock is worthless.
They cannot "strike back" at the Noordas directly. But suppose Canopy
still own Novell stock? Suppose they bear a huge grudge against Novell for
refusing to sign over the copyrights that may have given SCO sufficient leverage
to get a better settlement in the IBM case.
For a long time now we've all considered the Microsoft connection. Though they
no doubt have had a hand in this - certainly in financing - I am wondering now
if MS have had more of an opportunistic involvement than being directly involved
in planning.
Instead I am wondering if the motive in all this madness is nothing more than
pure, simple, blind revenge?
The reason this seems at least partially plausible is the thought that someone
who is totally consumed by revenge can lose all rational thought. The goal of
hurting someone else can transend reason and personal consequence and become an
all-consuming passion.
It's just a wild theory - which doesn't make it right - but it does fit the
facts.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, June 13 2008 @ 03:15 AM EDT |
The bankruptcy court says they can't put any money into a trust account for
Novell because it would prejudice the other creditors.
If I was a creditor I'd rather get $0.80 for every dollar owed rather than get
$0.00.
As a creditor I'd be upset watching money owed to you being paid to lawyers.
Everytime a SCOX lawyer gets paid a dollar there is one left dollar to share
amongst all the other creditors.
It seems to me that it is extremely unfair that the lawyers get paid but not
creditors.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: TiddlyPom on Friday, June 13 2008 @ 11:36 AM EDT |
I appreciate that the current 'SCO' actually comes from Caldera Systems rather than
the original SCO
that became Tanantella
Inc (which was then taken over by Sun).
Nevertheless Santa Cruz
Operation was (at one time) produced a product that was a reasonable version of
UNIX and the UNIX reminant of this once proud company has been completely
destroyed due to the sheer stupidity of Darl McBride attacking
Linux and the open source community.
It seems to me that the assets of
'original SCO' have been given away as quickly as possible to prevent Novell
getting a single penny of the money. The only reason I can think of for this is
to somehow try and 'spoil' the court's decision (to outside viewer's eyes) that
Novell still owns the rights to UNIX. If SCO had settled and paid Novell the
money that was legitimately theirs then it would have re-enforced Novell's claim
on UNIX (and ultimately the legitimacy of Linux).
Someone does not want
this to happen and (this is pure speculation on my part) I suspect that the
person (or people) pulling the strings are not within 'New SCO' but are probably
more likely to be Microsoft or Sun although obviously this is difficult to
prove. The name of the game for SCO now just seems to be to drag out the
nebulous claims against Linux for as long as possible (for FUD reasons of
course) until SCO dies as a company.
This is a complete tragedy for the
original developers of SCO Unix who have seen their legacy destroyed for
political purposes.
---
Open Source Software - Unpicking the
Microsoft monopoly piece-by-piece. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Jeffrey on Friday, June 13 2008 @ 12:46 PM EDT |
| And maybe why didn't the court put money into a trust to protect
Novell? - PJ
I have been wondering about this very question for quite
some time.
- Which court should/could have done this; Utah or
Delaware?
- When could they have done this?
It just seem to be such an
abuse of the court system. Call me jaded ... but if you have a CEO/President who
is absolutely determined that he is right, even though as a lawyer you KNOW you
cannot win, then when does the level of responsibility shift from that CEO to
the law firm? Is it only when the court considers it to be frivolous? Does it
matter if the law firm is working on contingency or not?
I ask that question
that way because of the number of lawyers involved in these two courts on the
SCO side alone that are trying to all get paid -- from a company that has
absolutely no money at all! They are bankrupt after all.
Would it be
wrong/unethical/impossible for the court to step in and tell the SCO lawyers
that the real victims here (IBM, Novell, RedHat, Autozone, Chrysler) are due
their share first BEFORE the creditors are all paid?
If SCO called you today
and asked you to do some work for them, would you? [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, June 13 2008 @ 03:14 PM EDT |
There is something I do not quite get from the sentiment about the money SCO
spends now -- which is officially owned by Novell but they will never get it.
Could I have a "show of hands" who believes here that MS and SUN were
paying that money to SCO for the actual purpose written in the agreement, i.e.
for some Unix licenses and rights to use/open-source etc. ?
At the time the deals were made, everybody on this site was saying it is just a
cover-up, excuse, smoke screen and the real reason is that they wanted to
support the law suits against Linux, making sure SCO does not run out of money.
Now, which one is it ? If the real reason of giving the money was to support the
attack (FUD) on Linux (as I think it was), then it isn't truly Novell's money. I
mean, officially it is now, because the SCO/MS lawyers messed up when writing
the agreement, and Novell's lawyers figured out they can now demand that money.
Which is a smart move no doubt, and the law is on their side. But the truth
isn't necessarily.
So, somebody please, clear this up for me! Was it
a) a cover-up story gone bad -- in which case we can't say Novell truly
"deserves" that money, OR
b) MS/SUN truly wanted to buy those rights and just paid the wrong company
instead of the real owner -- in which case they were never supporting the attack
on Linux ?
We can't have it both ways...
ZZ
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, June 13 2008 @ 03:45 PM EDT |
SCOGBK #499 PSZJ April ... so expensive to organize a cancelled hearing ;-)
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