Eagle1993

I question if this date can be held. There is still no ruling on the RSA. There is no official Disclosure document. Mediation is still ongoing with COs & insurance companies late this week. One lever these COs have that is outside bankruptcy court is to simply pull charters during recruiting. Could you imagine the pain they could cause if they send letters out to all of their units stating January 1, 2022 they will no longer charter the units? There have been a few instances of this, but really localized. If BSA submits their next plan, without CO coverage, those shots could go national. So, I have a hard time seeing the BSA having an official plan without COs included (at least the top COs). I expect BSA is aware of the shots over the bow that the Methodist and Catholic churches have already launched and the churn that has already caused. I cannot imagine that during recruiting season, BSA would want one of every three of their charters being threated. I also expect the COs realize their best hope is to be in the next offer ... otherwise, they will be sitting ducks in state court with no BSA and no insurance coverage (in many cases) to back them up. So ... we that Aug 25 date seems optimistic. The plan may not include COs in the end, but I expect the TCC, BSA and COs will ask for more time to get to a mediated solution. All of this assumes the RSA is approved. If it is rejected ... well ...

"It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." - Yogi Berra Yogi is 100% correct ... but I'll venture out a bit as it relates to bankruptcy. I'm not convinced most parents care about the bankruptcy. Occasionally it comes up ... but they see our Pack is lead by parents they know. We are not strangers and there is still some interest in scouting. I really doubt that amount BSA pays has any impact on recruiting. The real impact on the program going forward will be a mix of Covid, volunteers and what families value.

This is a fair point and it doesn't feel right. If I knew the Disclosure would proceed on schedule without this payment, I would be 100% in favor of rejecting it. Perhaps it will as the Coalition lawyers (I believe many if not all would be paid through the contingency fees) would look pretty dirty if they scuttled the RSA because they personally were not being paid directly out of BSA fees.

Ha! I will say that I'm in a few FB groups and occasionally check out Reddit. I don't know about ScoutsL but this forum and this topic seems to be the one that provides the most info from the bankruptcy case and has a good combination of claimants and current scouters providing their thoughts. At times it gets a bit nasty (moderators try to limit that) and drifts off topic, but overall it probably provides a good snapshot of the thoughts of the engaged members of various groups. We already have decent evidence that Kosnoff reads this forum/topic from time to time and we know, based on history, that senior members of National BSA are aware of this forum. It is probably good news that a member of the TCC is reading this (if he is). Looking through all of the objections and comments from the last 3 days of trial, I really do hope the judge rejects the Hartford deal (what is the point of keeping it if it seems very apparent it will be rejected by the claimants) approves the Collation payments (it is $10M+ ... yes, a lot of money, but in $850M is in discussion right now and rejecting it could stop the process and have BSA wasted many times that amount in getting to a new RSA) approves the RSA ... I'm not sure why the board didn't vote for it, but it is not like the BSA has another great plan up its sleeves. This saves the 4 HA bases, trademarks and overall organization. I'm not sure they can do better. If the judge goes the other direction, I'm concerned that the deal will be worse for both BSA & claimants. Insurance companies can fight later on in court ... there is no need to delay this deal.

Really good article; however, they completely missed the US Trustee’s objection.

The way I read it.. the BSA is basically saying this is it. Either approve the deal or the BSA will fold. Is that how it sounded today?

https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/boy-scouts-defend-sex-abuse-deal-deny-undue-influence-2021-08-16/

So what’s next? Bench ruling? If so, any idea when?

All of this is managed by lawyers. What he sees, what he doesn’t, what he says, etc. I’m not impressed by his leadership but I would not be surprised if much of this is being managed by a legal team.

Any update on the hearing? How did Buchbinder's testimony go?

I think the US Trustee will concur with this. I believe the US Trustee has a hard time believing you can insulate COs, LCs and pull in their insurance companies into the National BSA bankruptcy ... as they are non debtors. Also, US Trustee objected to the Coalition payments.

she seemed to quickly gloss over the process question on how they were calculated in addition the US Trustee says they are not legal. I think you are correct.

Any update on the hearing today? When does it start?

Yep. I was thinking after this hearing we may have a decision and can start a new thread.

What was the pro/con aspect of the "good faith" decision. It sounds like the RSA parties (BSA, LCs, TCC/Coalition) decided they didn't want the "good faith" decision. I'm confused as it sounded like it would be a benefit for the TCC/Coalition.

So ... she wants to move on and perhaps, I wonder, if this point is moot. The US Trustee objected over this payment saying this is clearly outside what is allowed. She may, in her mind, have already decided she will rule against the payment and would like to avoid the bunny hole of how it was calculated. We will see ... but it sounds like she wasn't concerned about digging into how it was calculated.

I’m guessing the judge is going to be mighty ticked. She wants this over and I don’t see how this issue is now ignored until a later date. Now she has to deal with possible fraud? I tend to agree with the law firms who state the claims must be reviewed first before the vote. You cannot let clear false or time barred claims vote in favor of a deal that the majority of other legal claims want rejected. I’m starting to think that BSA won’t emerge until 2022…

Looking at BSA's financials, I question why they said they would be out of cash by the end of this Month (or perhaps September). At the end of December 2020, they had $52.5M in unrestricted cash and $175M total unrestricted liquidity balance. At the end of June 2021, they have $72.5M in unrestricted cash and $175M total unrestricted liquidity balance. Even their restricted accounts have grown. It appears BSA can last, at least financially, in bankruptcy for much longer than they previously stated.

This thread is just growing a bunch of red arrows. Take the weekend off of this debate. Go out and have fun.

Hmmmm….

I think at least one or two that follow this thread have Kosnoff as their lawyer. Do you have any insights into the Kosnoff v Eisenberg fight? Which one would represent AIS?

Ok …. Very interesting point just came up in FB. The official UMC FB page said the final bankruptcy deal Must include COs to allow COs to continue work in scouting. They also said progress is being made. So…. Perhaps that is the hiccup. The final deal must have COs (as BSA cannot function well at this time without COs) and the CO portion of the deal isn’t finalized.

Options…. 1) Some of these firms lost clients to Kosnoff 2) Kosnoff lost some of clients to these firms 3) Kosnoff is misrepresenting how many clients he has 4) These firms are misrepresenting how many clients they have How can they even vote for a plan if they don’t know which law firm represents each client (and I expect some are not represented). What an absolute mess.

Did Kosnoff sign on? I thought he represented 17,000 and there are 84,000 claims. Something fishy….