On October 3rd and 4th, 2010, the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors of Tribune Company (the “Committee”, on behalf of Tribune Company, et al. (the “Debtors”) brought 209 adversary proceedings for the recovery of preferential transfers. Of these 209 complaints, all appeared to name individuals as the defendants. The primary theory of recovery is avoidance of preferential transfers to an “insider”, which designation under Section 547 of the Bankruptcy Code allows the Committee to seek avoidance of transfers made during a 1 year period prior to the bankruptcy petition filing. The amount and basis for each transfer is identified on Exhibit A to each complaint. The identified transfer bases include: “Restricted Stock Units”, “Executive Transition”, “Deferred Bonus”, “Excise Tax Gross Up” and “Phantom Equity”.

A secondary theory of recovery given by the committee is avoidance of fraudulent conveyances pursuant to Section 548(a)(1)(B). Although Section 548 provides for a 2 year avoidance period, apparently all of the transactions the Committee seeks to avoid occurred within a 1 year period.  This position likely is based on the effects of the transactions that closed in December 2007, as discussed in detail in the Examiners Report.

The following is an overview of the adversary proceedings.  Click this link to see a current adversary proceeding report regarding the filings in the Tribune Company Creditors Committee avoidance adversary proceedings.