It was the preferred outcome by the majority of his creditors, not by all his creditors (note that preferred != economically best). If the creditors were unanimous in their preferences, there would be no issue before the court.

Nope that would have required a transfer of funds between two specific parties which has tax consequences. Instead, one party decided to forgo money not simply hand money to the other party.

So because it’s not handing money to a specific person just everyone else, the math requires third parties to also be better off.

ps: Economic maximization alone isn’t relevant here. The underlying economic value matters when individuals aren’t voluntarily participating in a transaction. If I destroy your car then I owe you based on the cars worth, but if you trade in your car moderately under blue book perhaps you’re just in a hurry.

I think the word "preferred" has been a bit overloaded in this discussion. There is a sense of economic advantage that you may be using, and this deal in that sense is "preferred" for everyone. There is the other sense of stated preferences, and this deal is clearly not in the stated preferences of one of the parties (hence the appeal to a court).

I think if the creditors unanimously wanted this to happen, it probably would not have been reversed over the idea that there could have been a higher value. The fact that this issue was raised to a court indicates that at least one creditor did not prefer it.

The article mentions Alex Jones was objecting to the transfer rather than creditors. Having a new round of bidding, especially with increased publicity is a reasonable thing to do.

I’m simply agreeing with independent 3rd parties who state that The Onion’s bid was larger and better for the creditors. Alex Jones clearly doesn’t want his life’s worked turned into such an obvious mockery, but while he’d love to sell these business to his parents for 1 dollar but the courts are acting to maximize the transaction’s value. Thus he can only object in terms of monetary value not his personal preferences.

Does the business that offered to buy InfoWars also not get shafted by the sale to The Onion?

By one creditor agreeing to forgo their debt only if The Onion buys it, that single creditor puts any other potential buyer at a disadvantage. It seems the highest bidder, regardless of whether that is another Alex Jones entity, has a fair counterargument such that this type of sweetheart deal is not fair to interested purchasers.

In what way is that different from any other larger bid? The math is identical to them borrowing ~5 million and then getting it back immediately afterwards.

In both cases the other creditors end up with more money and Alex Jones ends up with less dept. It feels unfair because you’re judging the debt as uncollectible, but they would be receiving more cash from other winners so they aren’t just sacrificing hypothetical money.

I’m sure if a large enough offer was made they would happily walk away with everything they would be entitled to, but losing some cash for a final fuck to someone who profited from their suffering and actively attacked them seems like a reasonable tradeoff.

It is both unfair to Alex Jones and any third party bidding on the asset. If some entity was willing to pay more for InfoWars than the debt AJ owes his creditors, he would be able to keep the extra.

If A owes B and C money and has to sell some asset to satisify the claim, the only fair way to value the asset is to sell it in the open market, an auction. If D will pay $5 for it and E will pay $500 for it, it would be unfair to both A and E if B waves his hands and say he forgoes his claim so long as D gets to buy the item.

I understand that InfoWars is likely being sold at auction because no buyer was willing to purchase it for a price that would satisify the debt before bankruptcy, but there is a nomzero chance that some buyer shows up and is willing to pay more for it than someone else specifically to keep it out of that particular buyers hands. Strange. Farfetched. Buy possible. And it wouldn't be fair to allow preference by those owed the debt as it defeats the fair market price process.

It’s normal for entities owed money to be able to use that debt in these kinds of auctions. They still need to cover whatever fraction of debt is owed to 3rd parties with actual cash. This is a backstop as auctions often result in far lower values for assets than a longer sales process can provide.

It also results in debtors getting out of more debt.

> I understand that InfoWars is likely being sold at auction because no buyer was willing to purchase it for a price that would satisify the debt before bankruptcy, but there is a nomzero chance that some buyer shows up and is willing to pay more for it than someone else specifically to keep it out of that particular buyers hands. Strange. Farfetched. Buy possible. And it wouldn't be fair to allow preference by those owed the debt as it defeats the fair market price process.

A blind auction happened and if someone had offered even 1% of Alex Jones debt for info wars they would have won. The specific deal setup by the Onion provided 1.7 million dollars to satisfy other creditors, but the Texas families are owed 49 million. So even if the Connecticut families agreed to accept nothing any deal handing more than 1.7 million to the Texas families would have won.

Further, while it seems impossible for Alex Jones to ever get out of this debt, the Onion deal got him closest to that possibility.