Judge Keith L. Phillips opened the formal hearings into Intelsat’s Chapter 11 exit plan. The process is scheduled to last about 10 days. Around 216 lawyers and observers attended the Zoom meeting for sessions which were described as “complex”.

The court was told that more than 90 percent of claimants against the various Intelsat entities had accepted the terms of the exit plan and bankruptcy reconstruction. The complexity was largely because of the many different Intelsat businesses as well as those Intelsat entities which traded from Luxembourg.

One useful element of agreement ahead of the actual start of the proceedings was that SES had modified and resolved with Intelsat some of their claims.

The official court filing said: “Following arm’s length discussions by and among the Debtors, SES, and certain of the Debtors’ other stakeholders, the parties have reached a consensual resolution of the SES Objection…. By this Settlement Agreement, the Parties, to avoid the cost and uncertainty of litigation, desire to compromise and resolve in the context of the Plan the remaining outstanding issues among the Parties related to the SES Plan Objection.”

As a consequence, SES will withdraw their objection to the Intelsat exit plan (subject to the court’s endorsement and approval). SES will now support the Intelsat exit plan. However, there remain other SES arguments not least the division of the FCC C-band incentive payments.

Other posts by Chris Forrester:

1. Optimism under threat at SES
2. Rivada visits Terran Orbital’s manufacturing HQ
3. Avanti wins spectrum debt obligation case
4. SpaceX breaks records for re-use launchers
5. IRIS2 already in trouble?
6. Intelsat contemplates next steps
7. SpaceX: 2.7m customers and $180bn value
8. Boeing, Virgin Galactic in court battle
9. Jupiter-3 a changemaker

Categories: Blogs, Inside Satellite, Policy, Regulation

Tags: cband, chapter 11, FCC, Intelsat, SES