A courtroom listening to on the sale of bankrupt electrical truck startup Nikola’s property to Lucid Motors was going easily on Friday. No objections had been filed to the transaction, and Delaware chapter decide Thomas Horan verbally accepted it with out hesitation.
Till, that’s, a lawyer piped up on the Zoom name towards the top of the listening to.
The lawyer stated his consumer “has some considerations” about the way in which the public sale course of was run. These may very well be addressed at a later date, he stated, however he pressured he didn’t need his consumer’s silence to “be held towards us sooner or later.”
The lawyer was representing ISSO LLC, an entity that Nikola’s founder Trevor Milton has been utilizing to guage a bid for his former firm’s property. As a part of that course of, he was already barred by Nikola from touring its Arizona manufacturing facility — a call that Decide Horan stood by final week.
Whereas the approval of the sale to Lucid was breezy, the late look by Milton’s consultant was an ominous signal that he’s not finished poking at his former firm.
Contemporary off a pardon from President Donald Trump, which helped him keep away from serving a four-year jail sentence, it’s attainable that Milton may attempt to battle a $168 million arbitration award he was ordered to pay Nikola final yr.
That arbitration award stays a key part of Nikola’s Chapter 11 chapter case. Forward of the chapter, Nikola was in a position to settle a category motion lawsuit by shareholders associated to the false claims Milton made whereas serving as CEO of the corporate. But it surely was ready to take action by promising to distribute that arbitration award to these shareholders.
Nikola additionally nonetheless has some property it hopes to promote following the Lucid transaction. Lucid bought the Coolidge, Arizona, manufacturing facility and the Phoenix headquarters lease, plus manufacturing tools. It can additionally rent 300 or so Nikola workers. However Nikola remains to be holding on to its stock of hydrogen-powered massive rigs and different assorted tools.
Joshua Morris, a lawyer for Nikola, stated within the listening to he was not stunned ISSO and Milton “would wish to attempt to taint these proceedings.”
“It is a sample of habits that we’ve seen time and again,” Morris stated. “We consider these are baseless assertions. When requested for any proof or any specificity, none was offered. We predict Your Honor ought to view these with a jaundiced eye.”
Morris went on to say that he believes Milton’s participation within the sale course of seems to be “an try to proceed to hurt the corporate for a profit that I can’t fairly verify.”
He added that Milton could also be casting a pall on the sale course of in hopes of impacting that arbitration award.
“Maybe the play is to render [Nikola] determined for help money in order that the committee [of unsecured creditors] forces the debtor to try or settle for some low-ball settlement proposal,” he stated. “We simply know that we consider we ran the sale course of with an openness and concerned all events.”
The attorneys left issues there and let the listening to come to an in depth. A spokesperson for Milton didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.