Normally when companies go into bankruptcy, it’s the lawyers who clean up. But according to Monday’s bankruptcy filing by The Weinstein Company, eight of the leading unsecured creditors are lawyers and law firms that stand to lose big time.
David Boies’ Boies Schiller & Flexner is owed a whopping $10.2 million, both for “professional services” ($4.5 million) as well as a “film participant vendor” ($5.7 million).
Boies has branched out into film producing in recent years, taking an executive producer credit on such films as the 2016 TWC drama “Gold” starring Matthew McConaughey.
Other top firms with outstanding bills from TWC include O’Melveny & Myers, Bert Fields’ Greenberg Glusker Fields and Debevoise & Plimpton, all for professional services.
In addition, Marty Singer’s “Lavely and Singer’s Client Trust” is listed as a “trade vendor” owed $2 million. In an email to TheWrap after this story was published, Singer clarified that his firm had never represented TWC but had won a $2 million legal judgment last month for client David Frankel in a dispute over TWC’s distribution of the director’s film “One Chance.”
As unsecured creditors, these companies could wind up with just pennies on the dollar of what they are owed.
A bankruptcy judge will oversee any payments, which would come from funds from the sale of TWC’s film and TV assets, and only after the company’s secured creditors — led by Union Bank and Bank of America — are made whole.
Dallas-based Lantern Asset Management has a $310 million stalking horse bid to acquire the bulk of the company’s assets.
Here’s a complete rundown of law firms and legal entities that are among the top 30 unsecured creditors of the company.
• Boies, Schiller & Flexner (1999) LLC, film participant vendor: $5,697,646.05
• Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP, professional services: $4,499,926.32
• O’Melveny & Myers LLP, professional services: $3,154,077.03
• Greenberg Glusker Fields, professional services: $1,820,078.15
• Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, professional services: $1,438,254.89
• Seyfarth Shaw LLP, professional services: $1,114,433.27
• Barnes & Thornburg, professional services: $858,994.84
Pamela Chelin contributed to this report.