Would you hire the former owner’s current live-in girlfriend to put things in order? That might suggest that the former owner isn’t as “out” as he claims to be.
Oh hell no, and I’d have the same suspicions about it as you have.
If there’s no bankruptcy, then Bob still personally owes all those debts from BobCon. Yeah, it might be tough to collect for all the creditors, but no more so than before when Bob was running BobCon.
If it turns out that Bob sold the assets for $1, and then declares bankruptcy to discharge the debts, then that’s the sort of fraud described above, and that bankruptcy shouldn’t happen. If Bob sold BobCon’s assets for $1, and still owes the debts, then that’s not fraud, that’s just another deadbeat making things difficult for his creditors.
If BobCon is a limited liablity company the assets, presumably, belong to BobCon and not to Bob personally. So it’s BobCon that has sold the assets, and BobCon that holds the sale proceeds, which are now all that is available to the creditors of BobCon. If the assets were sold at an undervalue, yeah, that’s a problem; the creditors can take steps to have the transaction set aside, and/or they can take steps against Bob personally, in his capacity as a director of BobCon, for authorising the fraudulent transaction. But if they were sold for full value, there is no problem.
How can the creditors know the terms on which they were sold? I know nothing of US insolvency/liquidation law, but if this is an insolvent winding up, I’d be very surprised if there was no mechanism for the creditors to take control of the liquidation, appoint their own liquidator, etc, etc.
You missed some parts of the story.
Like Bob announcing BobCon2018, taking money from a lot of people for prepaid tickets, etc., and only after that shutting it down. That money has gone into Bob’s pockets, too, along with the money from the sale of the assets to Susan.
And this is without even getting into the question that it seems like it might have been a sweetheart deal, with some of the same people still running the business.
Well, only if you assume that Susan is a complete moron and that money was not factored into the sale.
I mean, this is pretty much General Motors, and it was sponsored by our US government. The “new GM” kept all the good stuff, and the “old GM” kept all the crap. Nice deal if you can get it.
This is the gift that keeps on not giving-It turns out this live-in girlfriend of the former owner who stiffed so many people over the years, the company official the new company hired on to run things?
Her position in the old company was Treasurer.
Woof. Ok, you got me. That is NOT a good sign of future good performance. :smack:
If I was a vendor who was still owed money, I’d laugh and hang up when she called asking for bids on the next con. Or say “My bid is that you pay me everything owed plus everything you’re likely to owe this year, all up front.”
This is essentially identical to US bankruptcy law. The funds from the sale of OldCo’s assets should be used to pay off creditors, but it OldCo and NewCo can be shown to have colluded to defraud OldCo’s creditors, the transaction can be vacated or a lien attached to NewCo’s assets.
This is essentially identical to US bankruptcy law. The funds from the sale of OldCo’s assets should be used to pay off creditors, but it OldCo and NewCo can be shown to have colluded to defraud OldCo’s creditors, the transaction can be vacated or a lien attached to NewCo’s assets.
Assuming you’re a creditor, you may wish to consult an attorney who represents creditors in bankruptcy proceedings. If OldCo isn’t bankrupt, just being wound up, you’ll probably want to talk to a consumer attorney who does class action litigation.
It could be a fraudulent conveyance. If the original LLC is in bankruptcy, then the Trustee may file an action. If the original LLC isn’t, what may happen is one of the creditors may file suit against the original LLC. When they try to collect and see that the LLC is insolvent or shut down, they may then sue the new owners depending on the situation.
What’s her position in the new company? If she’s effectively running things, I’d be suspecting a sham transaction: that she and her BF decided to shift the business from one side of the bed to the other, in a way that kept them in control but got them out from under the debts.
I was involved in something like this (only, only as a “bit player” - I had a magazine subscription from the old company when the sale took place) about 35 years ago. Anyone who knows what TSR and SPI were knows what I am talking about.
The quick version: TSR and SPI were game companies (TSR was the Dungeons & Dragons company; SPI was primarily wargaming). In the early 1980s, SPI had serious money issues, and TSR ended up purchasing SPI’s “assets but not liabilities” for some undisclosed amount of money which, apparently, was enough to appease the major creditors but not the rank-and-file types like myself, who were told by TSR, "Any magazine subscriptions you had under SPI are now void, including those of you with ‘lifetime subscriptions’; however, since we’re such nice people, we’ll send everybody the next issue of the magazine, that SPI had printed but not gotten around to mailing, as well as a discount on a one-year subscription. (Also, in one of the TSR issues of the magazine, they ran an announcement: “If you have a TSR version of an SPI game that is missing a part, let us know. If you have an SPI version of a game that is missing a part, that’s Not Our Problem.”)
On the other hand, speaking of gaming companies with money problems, here’s a more recent version of a similar story:
A game company in Canada borrowed quite a bit of money from someone, but had a habit of using whatever money it had on game development rather than paying him back. Eventually, he went to court to get the money. Meanwhile, the owners of the company claimed that it did not have the money, but How About That, there just happens to be a new company in the USA that is now working on the games the old company said it was developing. The person owed the money went to court in the USA, and the judge pretty much let the game company have it with both barrels. Eventually, at least some of the money was paid back - with money received from a Kickstarter for a new game which the (Canadian) company now says will never be made, and no refunds given, unless it can find another company to give it backing (which, given the history of what the company does with money, is not about to happen).