Reporting on Intelsat’s Chapter 11 reconstruction is not helped by the slew of daily Motions and Filings made to the company’s bankruptcy court, nor by the conflicting arguments lodged by the varied interested parties. Yours truly is assisted in this revision by a source close to the action.

There are two important strands: The first concerns SES and its $1.8 billion claim on Intelsat and how the FCC’s incentive payments are to be divided. There has been a mediator appointed (Hon. Steven Gold – former Eastern District of New York US district court judge) to review alleged attorney/client privileged documents and determine whether they must be produced in conventional discovery.

The SES claim trial is still scheduled to go forward before the Bankruptcy Court on June 28th.

The second strand concerns the action which concerns Confirmation of Intelsat’s plan of reorganisation which has generated many objections. This element is quite definitely delayed and the process slowed. The delay resulted from Intelsat’s request for the Bankruptcy Court to appoint a mediator to attempt to resolve disputed plan issues. The court has appointed a mediator (Chief Judge Frank Santoro – sitting Chief Judge of Eastern District of Virginia Bankruptcy Court) and he is conducting his mediation.

SES, along with a number of other litigants, is participating in the mediation. But the delays have created new dates. For example, the Disclosure Statement hearing has been rescheduled to May 27th (from April 14th). This means that the Confirmation hearing will be delayed from mid-June likely until sometime early August. The Confirmation hearing will also include hearing on standing motions related to allocation of Accelerated Relocation Proceeds. Discovery dates, and related to standing Motions before the court, have been moved; these dates have not yet also been set for the Discovery on Confirmation, but the Confirmation dates are likely to be the same.

Any settlements resulting from Judge Santoro’s mediation will be built into an amended plan and reviewed by the Bankruptcy Court at the Confirmation hearing. If, for example, SES and its objections to Intelsat’s Confirmation and allocation of Accelerated Relocation Proceeds are not resolved during the mediation process, SES will continue to make its objections at the Confirmation hearing

Other posts by Chris Forrester:

1. Virgin Galactic in stock split
2. Thuraya-3 suffers major problem
3. AST SpaceMobile hit by Class Action
4. Optimism under threat at SES
5. Rivada visits Terran Orbital’s manufacturing HQ
6. Avanti wins spectrum debt obligation case
7. SpaceX breaks records for re-use launchers
8. IRIS2 already in trouble?
9. Intelsat contemplates next steps

Categories: Blogs, Inside Satellite, Policy, Regulation

Tags: FCC, Intelsat, SES