It makes sense in many cases: when, say, Verizon Wireless acquired Alltel, an Alltel customer who has automatic monthly billing set up shouldn't be required to re-set up billing with Verizon, simply because it's a new company.

It's not clear to me that the same intuition applies if the Alltel equivalent is shutting down because it was mismanaged, and the Verizon equivalent was created by one of the mismanagers and has no other assets, but it's hard for me to imagine there's a meaningful legal distinction.