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Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

nytimes.com

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Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#291

Post by munk-a »

wakawaka28 wrote: post #67
cess11 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He can't pay his debts. What alternative to bankruptcy do you propose?

I'm not arguing against bankruptcy. I'm saying that bankruptcy is a structured process that is supposed to generate monetary outcomes for everyone. Selling off assets in a non-competitive process is basically a criminal move, especially if you collude with one of the bidders who is also a creditor. Bankruptcy itself aside, the judgement against Alex Jones here is huge. I haven't looked it up but I'm sure it broke rec…

Bankruptcy is a process to make whole the debtors - in this case the primary debtors (those representing far more than 90% of the debt) were content with the outcome. The process was approved by everyone who is a relevant party to this matter - the original owner (Jones) no longer has any say in what happens to their former assets.

Just to reiterate - the trillions number is irrelevant - it's just an initial damages claim. The judgements were for 965M and 50M - slightly over 1B in total - and the expected final award to the injured parties is likely going to be below 200k.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#292

Post by amyames »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #258
iav wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you need a lot more than 2 bidders for the theory to hold. Repeating the auction just seems pointless, but another avenue could be for the assets to not be sold, and the claimants to receive 100% of the equity of the business. Then over time they can potentially see a better recovery than what they are getting from a sale.

> you need a lot more than 2 bidders for the theory to hold Wrong. Vickrey auctions are well studied in single-item auctions even with two bidders [1]. (They perform between 4/3 and 2 compared to an optimal omniscient auction. Not solved. But not unstudied.) > claimants to receive 100% of the equity of the business This is Chapter 7. The bankruptcy estate already legally owns the asset, not Jones. [1] https://www.tim…

The trustee gets something like 3% over $1million in liquidated assets.

Call it 52,000 from the onion sale.

well now someone says I could have bought it for 10 million.

trustee now gets $300,000. They’re not going to get in the way.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#293

Post by JumpCrisscross »

amyames wrote: post #292
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you need a lot more than 2 bidders for the theory to hold Wrong. Vickrey auctions are well studied in single-item auctions even with two bidders [1]. (They perform between 4/3 and 2 compared to an optimal omniscient auction. Not solved. But not unstudied.) > claimants to receive 100% of the equity of the business This is Chapter 7. The bankruptcy estate already legally owns the asset, not Jones. [1] https://www.tim…

The trustee gets something like 3% over $1million in liquidated assets. Call it 52,000 from the onion sale. well now someone says I could have bought it for 10 million. trustee now gets $300,000. They’re not going to get in the way.

Why do you think this is relevant? (Everyone is ostensibly trying to maximise the price.)

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#294

Post by rtkwe »

a12k wrote: post #230
ajb wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what this judgement says. It actually says the sale did not generate enough money for the creditors and the process should be run again. I think the Judge maybe naive in thinking that re-running an auction will generate more money (normally it will generate less, as the losing bidders will drop out) but he did not agree with Jones' claims.

The creditors agreed to and supported the Global Tetrahedron plan to purchase Infowars and settle the bankruptcy. Seems like the judge is overstepping given Delaware law on this matter.

The main reasoning by the judge seemed to be that a single round sealed bid process is unlikely to maximize the sale price which on it's surface seems pretty accurate.

So long as the families forgoing parts of their judgements is allowed to be part of the bids though any competing bids seem doomed, it's a big war chest they can throw around that's essentially meaningless because they'll never be able to collect it anyways.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#295

Post by munk-a »

stavros wrote: post #281
HPsquared wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of that Russian court that recently fined Google $20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. Funnily enough this was along similar lines to the Alex Jones case but in reverse.

Huh, I wonder why they stopped at 20.

They didn't - it was a more modest amount that they put daily compounding interest on. The number keeps growing larger and larger by the day.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#296

Post by munk-a »

sophacles wrote: post #194
logicchains wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>money for Jones which he will use with even less restraint since he knows there are no consequences He was fined over a billion dollars, in what world is losing a billion dollars no consequences?

He wasn't fined. He had a judgement for damages against him. They are different things with a similar outcome (he's out a billion dollars) - accuracy is important. Also - until he actually pays any of that billion dollars, there have been no consequences.

Additionally, it's important to highlight that he refused to properly comply with the legal process - so it was a default judgement. This is essentially unheard of due to how unwise it is.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#297

Post by pclmulqdq »

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #58
ipaddr wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have a debt judgement not economic power. They can sell that debit judgement to a company who collects. They can take the money from the result of the court process and try to buy infowars after this is all over. They don't have a judgement of ownership in infowars they have a debt and the court is forcing Alex to sell all assets to cover the debt. Then the rest is written off and he gets a black mark on his cre…

> They don't have a judgement of ownership in infowars they have a debt and the court is forcing Alex to sell all assets to cover the debt. It's a chapter 7 bankruptcy, the bankruptcy estate already owns the infowars assets. > There are rules around this process for a reason. If you allowed someone who has a debt judgement to just take over a company what is it's true value. Alex could try to value infowars at a tril…

"Cash to minority creditors" doesn't matter. "Cash to the estate" is all that matters. The Onion's offer carried $1.75 million in cash to the creditors. Alex Jones's vitamin company offered $3.5 million in cash.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#298

Post by JumpCrisscross »

rtkwe wrote: post #294
a12k wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The creditors agreed to and supported the Global Tetrahedron plan to purchase Infowars and settle the bankruptcy. Seems like the judge is overstepping given Delaware law on this matter.

The main reasoning by the judge seemed to be that a single round sealed bid process is unlikely to maximize the sale price which on it's surface seems pretty accurate. So long as the families forgoing parts of their judgements is allowed to be part of the bids though any competing bids seem doomed, it's a big war chest they can throw around that's essentially meaningless because they'll never be able to collect it an…

> main reasoning by the judge seemed to be that a single round sealed bid process is unlikely to maximize the sale price which on it's surface seems pretty accurate

Did the judge argue against the single round or the sealed price?

Criticising sealed bids is nonsense. The gold-standard auction (Vickrey, or more accurately, VCG) features sealed bids. If the judge is criticising sealed bids at all, The Onion should appeal.

Criticising a single-round auction, particularly with two bidders, on the other hand, is valid.

> as the families forgoing parts of their judgements is allowed to be part of the bids though any competing bids seem doomed, it's a big war chest they can throw around that's essentially meaningless because they'll never be able to collect it anyways

Isn't it also meaningless if the person whose estate they're collecting is bidding against them?

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#299

Post by BadHumans »

ajb wrote: post #206
jmward01 wrote: post #42

It is clear that Jones and his relatives have moved money and assets around in order to shield them from the verdict. Now, money that should have been already given to the victims is being used to steal back the megaphone that caused harmed in the first place. The end effect will probably be even more subscribers and money for Jones which he will use with even less restraint since he knows there are no consequences.…

That's not what this judgement says. It actually says the sale did not generate enough money for the creditors and the process should be run again. I think the Judge maybe naive in thinking that re-running an auction will generate more money (normally it will generate less, as the losing bidders will drop out) but he did not agree with Jones' claims.

Elon is going to be the highest bidder if they run the process again.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#300

Post by marcusverus »

hobs wrote: post #235
logicchains wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Incitement to credible threats of violence Incitement means means explicitly encouraging. Just because someone people made threats of violence to the families because they believed what Alex Jones said about the shootings, doesn't mean that saying "The shootings were faked" is incitement. If Jones had explicitly said "the families deserve to suffer violent consequences for helping fake the shootings", that would be…

Anyone defending Alex Jones in this case is either ignorant, a fool, or an absolute garbage human being. I am going to pick ignorant in this case. > “Folks, we got to get private investigators up to Sandy Hook right now. Because I’m telling you this — this stinks to highest heaven.” > “Why did Hitler blow up the Reichstag — to get control! Why do governments stage these things — to get our guns! Why can’t people get…

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