Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Providing employees with de novo severance after you know it's going under guarantees creditor lawsuits. Citation needed. Providing executive suite with bonuses and parachutes does. Indeed, even law firms talk about this: > Severance payments to “insiders” (generally defined under the Bankruptcy Code as officers, directors, persons in control of the business, and relatives of such individual(s)) could be subject to…
Clawback is one year for insiders, 90 days for all others [1]. We're describing something closer to simultaneity, where "the debtor enters into a severance agreement simultaneously with an employee’s termination" [2]. This is precedented for clawback, and would almost certainly be litigated given the number of employees involved. TL; DR The moment you find the business insolvent, it belongs to your creditors. Many co…
Your reference in [2] refers to an executive, an "insider", which is exactly what I said - that there is precedent against allowing such payments to insiders (hence the one-year clawback window).
I still can't find any cases where unsecured creditors have successfully injuncted a bankrupt company from making severance payments to non-executive employees.
> With Toys ‘R’ Us, the creditors voluntarily provided the severance [4].
The creditors did no such thing. From your source, emphasis mine:
> Two of the private equity firms that used to own the defunct toy store have allocated $20 million to a severance fund that will be distributed in the coming months."
The mediators who were handling part of the bankruptcy proceedings agreed to administrate the disbursement of funds.