Infowars sale to The Onion to be reviewed by judge.
Infowars sale to The Onion to be reviewed by judge.
Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez expressed concerns about transparency in the bidding process of Alex Jones' site.
You're viewing a single thread.
Jones has a right that his assets not be sold unreasonably as a fire sale or for an illegitimate purpose
Genuinely asking: is that true in any way shape or form?
Because I was under the impression that when assets are seized they stop being yours and you have no right to anything regarding them. But maybe that only applies to poor people
I'll let people who know legalese say it better than I do, but the gist of the answer is:
A judge cannot seize a piece of property to settle a debt, then dramatically undervalue it in order to say that the seizure satisfies only a smaller portion of the debt instead.
So in a case like this, if Infowars was valued at $10 million for example. The judge can't just arbitrarily say it's only worth $1 million, and therefore the seizure only satisfies $1 million of the debt instead of $10 million. Further, you can't take something valued at $10 million, put it up for sale for $1 million, then say that the defendant still owes another $9 million, because you're effectively increasing the judgement against him by that $9 million. I'm probably not saying this perfectly right, but I'm sure you get the idea.
Judges can allow sales like this to go through, but the winning bidder has to show why the other incentives being offered should be accepted over just straight up cash. If a judge just looks at the bottom line and sees (for example), the Onion bid $1 million but Jones' associate bid $6 million. A judge is absolutely going to hold a hearing and want to ask about 75 million questions about why the "winning bid" was so low. If the Onion and the families go in and say "We want Onion to get the bid. We are willing to waive $5 million off of the total debt owed to us, along with waiving $X million so Infowars' creditors can get paid. Therefore, our bid is actually higher than the competitive bid after other incentives have been considered.", a judge should sign off on it with no issues from there.
Again, I hope I've explained this correctly. I don't know any of the specifics of the auction so the numbers I used were pulled out of my ass for discussion purposes.
The biggest concern I have is that the Trump administration could very well meddle in this case and use whatever quazi-legal bullshit they can come up with to essentially hand the company back to Jones through the back door, if not just invalidate the judgement against him entirely on the basis of because fuck you that's why. Doing so would be a great way for Trump to advertise the rewards that his cronies can expect for those who are deemed loyal enough while costing him no political capital at all.
To me, the biggest red flag is that an associate of Jones is claiming that they should be the winner of the auction. That sounds to me like a conflict of interest in the sale of seized property, if in effect it likely would end up remaining in control of its original owner.
You shouldn't get to sell your ill-gotten gains to a close friend who's "totally not going to let you keep them, trust me bro".
It's a fine, not stolen goods. If they can pay it, it's hunky dory. It's not a conflict of interest, it's the exact opposite.
Yeah the only party here that should have any say whatsoever is the Sandy Hook families. If they want to forgo what Jones owes them in order to give the sale to The Onion that should 100% be their call. They OWN Jones' shit.
The issue is what the valuation of the seized assets are. The asset seizure is only to fulfill the monetary debt since he cannot pay the entire amount in cash. If he could pay it in full, there would be no seizure (unless the seizure itself was a separate part of the judgement). The valuation is essentially what someone is willing to pay for it, and in this case, there are only 2 bidders to value it.
The Onion's bid was not the highest bid, but does have the backing of the family. Jones on the other hand also has a right for the valuation to be as correct as possible to fulfill his debt. This type of situation isn't particularly unique, and it's not exactly new.
The Judge could end up deciding that The Onion's bid goes through due to family backing since the debt is to them and the asset being sold is directly relevant to the judgement, but the valuation of the opposing bid is counted against the debt, which is the only thing Jones is really entitled to here.
My impression from the article was, The Onion bid contained both a monetary sum, and partial debt relief. The total value then - the sum + the debt relief - was higher, and that's how it won. So, it wasn't just the victims' backing weighing in, they actually put money on it.
You are correct. It's just that because the details of the bids are sealed, it appears on the surface that the Onion bid was too low relative to the value of the asset and the competitive bid. The hearing is to clear that misconception up; The onion bid + incentives thrown in (debt relief + benefits to other creditors) actually brings the overall value of the bid to above the value of the competing bid, and possibly of Infowars itself. This means that not only is the Onion bid the actual winning bid, the bid is of greater financial benefit to not only the sandy hook families, but to Jones' creditors and ultimately Jones himself.
This is normally routine, but given all of the players involved, it just opens the door to a lot of fuckery. Under normal circumstances, a hearing like this wouldn't even be noteworthy, much less newsworthy.
The Onions bid does not just have the backing of the Sandy Hooks families, those same families agreed to defer their payments until after Jones has paid his other debts as part of the Onions bid.
The valuation is essentially what someone is willing to pay for it, and in this case, there are only 2 bidders to value it.
Nitpick: This is probably the case 99% of the time, but there is the outside possibility that there were some restrictions on the auction that we do not know about that caused potential bidders to shy away, therefore lowering the perceived value of the assets artificially.