American court hearing recordings and interviews - Listen to the Saks bankruptcy court hearing of June 11, 2026

Episode Date: June 13, 2026

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All right. Next matter I have is 26-9010103 SACS Global Lavone, Laveone, Gary. One of them was. I don't think that's what you like. All right. Is anyone here for, and I guess counsel for Mr. Aiken, Christopher Aiken? Yes. Your Honor, can you hear me? I can hear you, yes. Your Honor, my name is... Good morning, Your Honor. My name is Farshit Fuzuni. I work with Mr. Ake, and I'm here on behalf of Ms. Gary. All right.

Who's here for the, I guess, we organized debtor, well, the debtor at this point? Good morning, Your Honor. John Brennan from Wolofi-Far and Gallagher on behalf of the global debtors. All right. Mr. Ferreoli for the committee. Good morning, Your Honor. Rafferioly of Morrison and Forrester on behalf of the U.S. official committee of unsecured creditors all right mr salucci for the ad hoc group morning your honor

martin j salvucci all lights rifted in board and garrison we have the ad hoc group and mr holzafel for the insurance company good morning your honor field holds off hold for safety national all right all right so where are we with this one i i've i've entered several stipulations i just entered the steiner one Your Honor, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. Not at all, please go ahead. No, no. Okay. I was just going to say I was going to.

I was gone. Go ahead. The global debtor's position, Your Honor, which is that, you know, at this point, our initial objection that was filed a while ago to this motion related to timing of things and the stay. At this point, the global debtors are not seeking to enforce the stay and there's no longer a timing issue per se. But the nuance, as I understand it here, is that the plaintiffs did not file proof of claim. So I think our position with respect to all of these is if a plaintiff filed a proof of claim, then we have no objection.

to relief from the stay or the plan injunction so that the plan can liquidate a claim and then proceed according to the terms of the plan. But here where a proof of claim has not been filed, I think our view and I don't want to speak for them, but I think safety national view also will be that we don't see how that goes forward under the terms of the plan without a proof of claim

having been filed. Your Honor, the court shows, oh, Can you somebody else again? Yeah, go ahead. No, no you down there. Yeah, okay. So I, um, the court previously, uh,

we continued the hearing today until today because of the planned confirmation that I believe occurred on June 5th. And, uh, the basis for Ms. Gary's relief here and I, and belief from the stay is that she has agreed. to seek only the insurance proceeds such that the estate is not impacted. And while I understand from the objections of safety and the debtors that there is a self-insured retention, the new scaring is willing to revoke any claim on that retention, you know, any recovering that she were to receive can be limited by that retention, such that there is no debt being incurred by the debtors that they must pay, and therefore, you know, the case well is pretty clear that she should be able to proceed,

particularly because such a case cannot ever come before the bankruptcy court. Your Honor, this is Caleb Bullsuffel for Saking National. Yes. Yeah, our opinion is with the debtors, maybe slightly more nuanced. There's a $250,000 SIR in place. Mr. Gary has not asserted any value to her claim. And, you know, given that, obviously there's no insurance about $250,000. 50,000 and they haven't even put a value on it.

They haven't filed a proof of claim. And so at this point, I don't think there's any sufficient evidence that the plan injunction, not to stay here, should be listed in that regard. I don't want my client to incur defense costs. Well, and I guess that's a new Ontario honor is these are assumed policies as well. And so it would be the estate likely that would be perhaps defending and or, looking to safety nationally looking to the estate for reimbursement post-petition for any defense costs incurred here.

So I think we're missing a critical piece of information given the lack of filing of a crippled claim. Well, Your Honor, if I may, I agree that we are missing some critical pieces of information. As far as I'm aware, and I can be corrected if I'm on here, but in filing the objections, nobody filed any policy, any endorsements, any like allocations of the defense. costs, you know, in retention ledger. So, well, we are based, you know, we are being objected on on the basis of speculation on a matter that courts routinely lift stays, or in this case now an injunction on,

to allow proceeding. And the court can treat the retention as a limit on the insurance liability, not as a debt payable on the estate. So this, this objection certainly, just really prejudice as my client and her ability to be able to proceed with her case when we don't even have the information from the debtors or the carrier as far as what the policies provisions are. Okay, so I'm going to go ahead and continue this to July 9th at 10 a.m.

And my feeling is that the plaintiff is going to need to be able to liquidate. date their proceeding in state court. And so I think that I would suggest, I mean, I would suggest or request that you all see if you can agree to a form of order. I think the fact that they haven't filed a proof of claim only means that, you know, that they can't come back to the, to the estate for treatment. But, but again, to the extent there, there are. there is insurance and they're entitled to liquidate their claim in state court or or

upstairs in the district court but as of as of right now i mean i'm not in a position to liquidate the claim um so uh i think that's that's the way i view it and um so i'm going to go ahead and continue it till july 9th at 1015 at 1015 Thank you, Your Honor. Okay. Thank you, Your Honor. All right. Then the next matter...

Yes, yes, you may, yes. Next matter is 26-9013, Angelica Perez. And I think this is an employment claim, correct, Mr. Brennan? That's right, Your Honor. Okay. Is anyone here for Ms. Perez? If they are not, Your Honor, I'm happy to just, I think my point of view is this is similarly situated.

Okay, hold on a second. Let me just see who their counsel is. His name is Mr. Hamel. All right, go ahead. Thank you, Your Honor. Again, John Ryan from Walski on behalf of the global debtors. I think in our view, this is a similar situation to the Gary motion that we just dealt with. There hasn't been approved a claim filed in our position.

the same which is that if there are insurance proceeds to go after we're not opposed to the timing here and we're not seeking to enforce this day per se but we want clarity on how the how this you know will work in like in light of that situation so having to continue this to another day as well if that makes sense all right so we'll go ahead and continue as well is mr. Hamill here Okay, so we'll continue this to the Angelica Perez to the docket number 2018 to July 9th, 1015. Thank you, Rod. Then I believe the last matter is docket number 2273, Slepana, well, it's Julia Sklar.

is the actual claimant. Good morning, I'm on there, Julesquart, I'm an attorney with Florida or spoken. Okay, all right. I was confused as to who was the lawyer and who was the client, so. Okay.

All right, Mr. Brendan. Yes, I think Mr. Marshall is on for, we have a different insurance carrier here. The other individual, so I'll just know that. All right, Mr. Marshall, you go ahead and make an appearance yes thank you your honor good morning jonathan marshall and steward on behalf of liberty mutual all right miss clara it's your it's your motion so why don't you go first yes your honor if i may um so um in the response of discovery um the defendant they're in

um at the time of newman marcos group disclosed that they are covered by generally They build insurance with a policy with Liberty Mutual. In the amount well in access of what my client, the client is an underlying action is seeking. And in response to discovery, their response, whether they're self-insured, the response was no. My clients have damages and what she's seeking is the way below the limits through Liberty Mutual. request that we shall proceed and limit our recovery within the policy limits in the underlying

action. Therefore, it should be excluded from the bankruptcy. Mr. Brandon. Your Honor, the debtors do not oppose stay relief here. We would want just to make clear that if the stay is lifted and Nizucoq. is permitted to proceed with liquidating our claims. It would be subject to the terms of the plan and the confirmation order.

We submitted at docket 2644-1, a proposed order that we believe reflects that and would offer stay relief here. I have spoken with counsel for Liberty Mutual, Mr. Marshall, and he has indicated that Liberty Mutual is supportive of the proposed order that we had submitted. He had suggested an additional sentence to be included at the end of paragraph 3 of that order, which we are agreeable to.

And if Your Honor would like, I'm happy to read that into the record or to submit that in a separate filing with that additional language, which is intended, I think, from Mr. Marshall's perspective to make clear that nothing is meant to modify the terms of the insurance policies or related agreements or the plan or confirmation order. All right. Ms. Clare, have you seen this proposed form of order? I don't believe so, Your Honor. All right. So, Mr. Brennan, why don't you send that proposed form of order to Ms. Clare and to the extent that there's no objection to it?

we I'll enter it otherwise I'll just to have a placeholder I will you know continue this to July 9th at 1015 and at that point if there we don't have an agreement on a form of order then you know I'll rule and issue my own order all right thank you all right thank you all right thank you thank you I believe that resolves all of the matters that were set all of the SACs matters that were set, Mr. Brennan. Is that correct? That's correct, sir. All right.

All right. Thank you. Thank you.