Tribune Creditors Drop Claims Against Small Shareholders

Creditors of Tribune Company asked a judge to drop legal claims against shareholders who got less than $50,000 from the 2007 leveraged buyout that critics blame for the newspaper publisher’s bankruptcy.

The official committee of unsecured creditors asked U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin J. Carey in Wilmington, Delaware, to remove the smaller shareholders from a so-called intentional fraudulent transfer lawsuit. The creditors claim shareholders wrongly benefited from the buyout because the debt taken on to fund the sale made Tribune insolvent. Removing those shareholders from the case “will conserve the resources of the court and the debtors’ estates,” committee lawyers with the law firm of Zuckerman Spaeder LLP said in a May 4 court filing.