Creditors' Committees

Creditors' committees can play a major role in chapter 11 cases. The committee is appointed by the U.S. trustee and ordinarily consists of unsecured creditors who hold the seven largest unsecured claims against the debtor. 11 U.S.C. § 1102. Among other things, the committee: consults with the debtor in possession on administration of the case; investigates the debtor's conduct and operation of the business; and participates in formulating a plan. 11 U.S.C. § 1103. A creditors' committee may, with the court's approval, hire an attorney or other professionals to assist in the performance of the committee's duties. A creditors' committee can be an important safeguard to the proper management of the business by the debtor in possession.....

That makes sense, to let those who are about to be stiffed have some say in how it all happened and what to do going forward. The committee gets to see the books and look over all the records. You can imagine a creditors' committee with Novell and IBM and Red Hat on it, I'm sure.

But who are the top seven creditors, according to SCO's filing, who we would normally therefore expect will be investigating SCO Group's and SCO Operations, Inc.'s "operation of the business" and formulating a plan for SCO to reorganize? The list for SCO Group [PDF] and for SCO Operations is identical, and Novell isn't on it, and neither is IBM or Red Hat. Instead, we find:

• Amici LLC ($500,650.73)
• Boies Schiller (287,256.39)
• Canopy Group ($139,895.00)
• Gre Mountain Heights Property ($132,502.00)
• Microsoft Licensing, Inc. ($125,575.00)
• Sun Microsystems, Inc. ($50,000.00)
• Veritas Software ($37,881.33)

With a couple of possible exceptions, that looks a little like a list of the perps to me.

Is that not bizarre? That can't be the final list. It can't pass the snort test, let alone the laugh test.

SCO is so much fun to watch. I'd say this bankruptcy is going to be at least as entertaining as the SCO saga has been in civil court.
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