In re BlockFi Inc. April 19, 2023 bankruptcy court hearing audio recording, chapter 11 case number 22-19361

Here is a link to the publicly available hearing audio posted to the bankruptcy court docket: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPVIlRX4U6w

In re Virgin Orbit Holdings, Inc. April 5, 2023 bankruptcy court hearing audio recording

Here is a link to the publicly available hearing audio posted to the bankruptcy court docket: https://youtu.be/Vl9w_1rXFyE

Bed Bath & Beyond email of Sunday morning to its customers with news the company has filed chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings...

 ---------- Forwarded message ---------

From: Bed Bath & Beyond <BedBath&Beyond@email.bedbathandbeyond.com>
Date: Sun, Apr 23, 2023 at 7:49 AM
Subject: Important Update from Bed Bath & Beyond Inc.

To Our Valued Customers:

Earlier today, Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. filed for voluntary Chapter 11 protection.

We appreciate that our customers have trusted us through the most important milestones in their lives – from going to college, to getting married, to settling into a new home, to having a baby – and we wanted to reach out to you to explain what this means.

Our stores are open and serving customers. However, we have initiated a process to wind down operations.
What This Means for Our Customers

We wanted to make you aware that several of our programs and policies may be changing soon. As of today:

• We expect to process returns and exchanges in accordance with our usual policies until May 24, 2023, for items purchased prior to April 23, 2023

• We expect Gift Cards, Gift Certificates, and Loyalty Certificates will be accepted through May 8, 2023

• We will no longer accept coupons or Welcome Rewards+ discounts beginning April 26, 2023

• We expect all in-stock orders placed online both prior and after our bankruptcy filing to be fulfilled at this time
Registry
Your registry data is safe. You can still view your registry at this time. We expect to partner with an alternative platform where you will be able to transfer your data and complete your registry. We will provide details in the coming days.

We Are Here for You
For Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and additional information, please visit
https://restructuring.ra.kroll.com/bbby. Stakeholders with questions can email
BBBYInfo@ra.kroll.com or call at (833) 570-5355 or (646) 440-4806 if calling from outside the U.S. or Canada.

Thank you for your loyalty and support.

Bed Bath & Beyond | buybuy BABY

Thomas Cook Group plc Collapses

Thomas Cook Group plc Collapses

.

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) returned 150,000 passengers to the United Kingdom following the collapse of the world’s oldest travel firm1 Thomas Cook Group plc in September of 2019.2 This was part of an initiative called “Operation Matterhorn” through which the CAA undertook what is considered to be the largest peacetime repatriation effort in British history.3 The CAA reported that, during the first 13 days of Operation Matterhorn, 94% of holidaymakers arrived at home on the day of their original departure.4 Remaining passengers needed to make separate arrangements to return home. The British Broadcasting Channel (BBC) reported that people who were covered by the Air Travel Organiser’s License scheme (Atol) would have the cost of their travel packages refunded and that the majority of Thomas Cook holidays were packages that are Atol protected.5 As the turmoil was unfolding, British Airways announced they were among airlines supporting the CAA in its repatriation efforts: “We will help as much as we can in the coming days.”6 Virgin Atlantic, founded by Sir Richard Branson, reportedly helped as well.7 Passengers returning to other parts of the world were not as fortunate.8

Not all branches of Thomas Cook are out of business

The operations of many Thomas Cook branded companies were not affected by the collapse and their customers’ travel plans were not disrupted. For example, Hindu Business Line reported that Thomas Cook (India) Group was a different corporate entity as of August 2012 when it was acquired by a Canada based multinational investment company.9 And there were heart warming stories out of local papers about travel companies intervening by buying former Thomas Cook branches and offering all employees their positions back. Word from the cathedral city of Chichester in West Sussex in England was “[t]he manager of the recently reopened former Thomas Cook shop in Chichester has spoken of her relief when she found out her job had been saved.”10

Thomas Cook in the 19th and 20th centuries

British Newspaper The Daily Telegraph, aka The Telegraph, founded in 1855 by a contemporary of Thomas Cook, published a history that focused on the company’s history prior to acquisition by C&N Touristic, AG, a German travel group in 2001.11 The Telegraph interviewed Paul Smith, the company’s archivist, who had access to rare items such as a Thomas Cook brochure for the marketing of flights, printed around 1919 when Thomas Cook marketed pleasure flights.12

Long before the company was arranging flights, it was organizing travel by train and by boat. According to the Telegraph, Thomas Cook was born in the Derbyshire market town of Melbourne in 1808 and was a man of religious conviction. In 1841 he began organizing trips for his fellow supporters of the temperance movement, which promoted abstaining from drinking alcohol. The first trip Thomas Cook organized was by train, from Leicester to Loughborough. The Telegraph goes on to lament: “The brand has survived two world wars, the regimes of six British monarchs, the rise and fall of the soviet bloc, and numerous changes to how we live…. A reproduction of a Thomas Cook ‘circular note’ – an in-house version of the traveller’s cheque – recalls a move into currency transactions in 1874. A ‘Nile Season: 1896-97’ brochure salutes the rise of river cruising….”13 According to The Telegraph, the company was incorporated as Thos Cook & Son Ltd. in the twentieth century and then was nationalized after the Second World War started, becoming part of state-owned British Railways.14 It went back to being a private company after the war, reportedly becoming owned by Midland Bank in the 1970s before being sold in the 1990s to a German bank and charter airline.15

Thomas Cook in the new millennium

The debt piled onto Thomas Cook’s innovative enterprise by its management in the new millennium was of a magnitude sufficient to cause Thomas Cook to roll over in his grave. The Guardian reported on September 21, 2019, days before the company collapsed and went into compulsory liquidation proceedings:

Just three weeks ago, the tour operator looked to have secured a £900m rescue package – half provided by Chinese tourism business Fosum, the rest by a mixture of banks and hedge funds. The debt-for-equity swap would wipe out £1.7b of loans, allowing the company to make its interest payments during the barren winter, when less cash comes in because bookings are low.

Then, in what one person familiar with the talks described as a bolt from the blue, came a shock demand from its banks, state-owned RBS [the Royal Bank of Scotland] among them. Thomas Cook must find an extra £200m, they said, or the restructuring could not go ahead. The company sometimes credited with inventing modern tourism must, by this weekend, somehow cobble the money together if it is to survive.16

Unfortunately negotiations did not work out and, on September 23, 2019, Thomas Cook Group plc ceased trading with immediate effect and entered compulsory liquidation proceedings in the United Kingdom.17

Conclusion

In addition to stranding people who were traveling when the company went into compulsory liquidation, the collapse of Thomas Cook has reportedly led to 9,000 employees in the United Kingdom being put out of work.18 The public outcry precipitated an investigation of the audit of the company in 2018 by the Financial Reporting Council19 and Members of Parliament questioning management.20

1 British travel firm Thomas Cook collapses, stranding 600,000 people abroad, Reuters, September 22, 2019.

2 Thomas Cook: Final repatriation flights touch down, BBC News, October 7, 2019.

3 Id.

4 Id.

5 Id.

6 Francesca Street, Air crews ‘stranded’ after Thomas Cook collapse, CNN Travel, September 25, 2019.

7 Id.

8 Stacey Leasca, Tour Operator Thomas Cook Ceases Operations, Leaving 600,000 People Stranded, Travel and Leisure, September 23, 2019.

9 Why Thomas Cook (India) is not affected by Thomas Cook’s collapse, Hindu Business Line, September 23, 2019.

10 Sam Morton, Thomas Cook; Delight for staff after jobs at former Chichester branch are saved, Chichester Observer, October 29, 2019.

11 Chris Leadbeater, The history of Thomas Cook, from tours for teetotalers to boozy packages to Spain, The Telegraph, September 23, 2019.

12 Id. Cover art from the brochures is included in the article, adding a great visual component to the history it presents.

13 Id.

14 Id.

15 Id.

16 Bob Davies, Holiday nightmare: big debts and bad luck push Thomas Cook to the brink, The Guardian, September 21, 2019.

17 BBC News, Thomas Cook collapses as last-ditch rescue talks fail, September 23, 2019.

18 Bill Wilson, BBC News, Thomas Cook’s auditor EY to be investigated, October 1, 2019.

19 Id.

20 BBC News, Thomas Cook: Former bosses deny responsibility for collapse, October 23, 2019.

Bankruptcy Regime For Nations Urged

Per www.globalinsolvency.com:

Tue., January 8, 2013

 

Argentina’s messy legal battle with hedge funds over its 2001 sovereign default has heightened calls to resurrect plans for a bankruptcy regime for countries, under the auspices of the International Monetary Fund, the Financial Times reported. Many senior lawyers, fund managers and former policy makers say recent court rulings against Argentina highlight the weaknesses of the current approach to government debt workouts, and argue that it is time to revisit the “sovereign debt restructuring mechanism” proposed by the IMF in 2002. The SDRM, envisaged as a kind of voluntary Chapter 11 for countries, never took off after US opposition. The initiative has received renewed interest since the eurozone debt crisis highlighted the weaknesses of the current ad hoc, contractual approach to sovereign debt restructurings.

Dewey & LeBoeuf: The Trouble with Tribbles

The docket in Dewey & LeBoeuf's Chapter 11 proceedings is starting to look like the classic Star Trek episode, The Trouble with Tribbles.

Tribbles are little furry animals that purr a sound so relaxing that even Vulcans find it soothing.  As wikipedia explains: The "trouble" with the tribbles is that they reproduce far too quickly and are capable of eating a planet barren if their breeding is not controlled; in the words of Chief Medical Officer Dr. McCoy, "they are born pregnant" and threaten to consume all the onboard supplies.

The Dewey docket invokes memories of this episode because it is riddled with retention applications seeking to employ professionals to work on the case.  Yesterday, a motion was filed for an order establishing procedures for interim compensation, and then several motions were filed on behalf of a variety of professionals whose services are purportedly needed to clean up the mess Dewey left behind when it collapsed.