This is where the bankruptcy is at now

This is a repost. PostID: @XkfeR41-jun .

The judge has not rules one way or another on that matter. There are formal procedures for a bankruptcy. It completes over multiple stages. Winner of the auction is selected solely by the debtor: the Board of Sears Holdings; which might or might not operate independently of the biggest shareholder; and/or independently of their (former) CEO. IMO many boards do not act independently. In that stage; surprise; surprise; Sears Board (and only their board) selected ESL / Transform Co as winner of the auction. The judge acted solely as a referee and creditors provided input; but neither had the ability to select winner of the auction. ONLY the debtor's board could do that; but the board; on behalf of the debtor; does hold a fiduciary duty to select the winner that would provide the most value to their estate on behalf of creditors.

Following the auction ANY part (even shareholders) can provide objections. This is where the bankruptcy is at now. The court is OBLIGATED to provide sufficient notice and time for parties to make objections.

The next stage; that has not occurred yet; is for the court to analyze objections; hold hearings; and pass some rulings; but might not be at a stage to pass final judgments; even though certification is expected Feb 4th; as the debtor must also be provided sufficient time to counter objections. The judge himself also need to personally read EVERY objection; which in itself will be an enormous task and could require extending the certification date.

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I read through most of the objections tonight off primeclerk. The biggest objection is that 300+ page one by the unsecured creditors. Mostly unproven stuff, that may or may not be true, is based on hindsight, speculation and will likely have to be litigated further down the road since there isn't any conclusive proof to a lot of it, its just assertions that may or may not be true a jury would likely have to decide that stuff. Much of it doesn't even have to be read. There are about 150 pages of store brand trademarks and websites that the UCC is claiming is intellectual property, various old patents which Sears never even used related to store operations, which if Sears never used them why would they now be valuable? Most of that IP is effectively worthless outside of Sears.

Look at the thing yourself. If you think anyone is going to pay money to own domains like searsgroomingservices.xxx you'll have a good laugh reading it. It contains tons of mothballed trademarks of Sears private branded stuff, some of which haven't been used in several decades. I'm sure you can imagine the rush to purchase mothballed Kmart house labels from the 1980s. Go look at them. Its laughable. I don't even know why Sears bothered keeping these trademarks current. I could only imagine what a trademark like Campfire Flannel would fetch if auctioned off. My guess is $0.

docket 1765 is the big objection, a lot of the others will likely be smoothed over and were from lack of clear wording, clarifications and such in the purchase proposal by ESL.

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This is where the bankruptcy is at now

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