Richard Baker is resisting efforts to get him to turn over a long list of documents related to his time running the now-bankrupt Saks Global.
Baker’s attorney, Rachel Strickland of Ropes & Gray, filed a motion to quash the retailer’s unsecured creditors’ “Rule 2004” request for information from the former chief executive officer and chairman.
Earlier this month, the creditors’ committee “commanded” Baker to produce “documents and electronic information” under bankruptcy Rule 2004. A similar command was issued to Ian Putnam, former CEO of Saks Global Properties & Investments.
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The request to Baker covered 13 different categories, including “all documents and communications between you and Marc Metrick,” the former Saks Global CEO, and information “relating to the acquisition of Neiman Marcus Group.”
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“There can be no meaningful dispute that Mr. Baker has responsive information to which the committee is entitled,” the committee argued in its filing. “Mr. Baker was a hands-on executive involved in nearly every key transaction the company entered into, including the Neiman acquisition and the LME,” a reference to the liability management exercise last summer that reworked the company’s debt.
The committee also said that Saks Global “took the position that their current personnel are not sufficiently knowledgeable to testify.”
Baker and his attorney disagreed.
“Since Mr. Baker’s separation with the company on the night of the [Jan. 13 bankruptcy] petition date, he has had no access to his company-affiliated email or company-issued hardware,” the filing said.
Baker argued that the company should instead respond to the subpoena.
“As to any privileged documents and communications sent while Mr. Baker was an employee or director, the debtors alone must determine whether to waive such privilege in connection with any production,” the filing said.
“Mr. Baker is not in possession of any material that is relevant to either of these concerns that is not already in the debtors’ possession,” the filing added. “Therefore, Mr. Baker seeks to quash the subpoena in its entirety or, at most, limit the burden to what is necessary….In short, no ‘fishing expedition’ should be conducted here.”
The committee — which includes some of Saks Global’s largest vendors, like Chanel Inc. and LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton and represents all unsecured creditors — is scouring the company and its recent history for sources of value that aren’t already pledged to secured creditors and might be tapped into.
That could include the potential rewards of any lawsuits related to how Saks Global sunk into bankruptcy.
And creditors aren’t the only ones with questions.
The special committee of HBC GP LLC — the parent company in the Saks Global bankruptcy — said in its own filing that it supported the creditors’ demands for documents and said that it too had “sought voluntary cooperation” from both Baker and Putnam.
“The special committee believes that information and testimony from these individuals would be useful in the context of its independent investigation into the potential viability of legal claims,” the committee said.
While Saks Global has continued apace with its bankruptcy, hitting major milestones and working out both a plan of reorganization and a business plan for the future, the reexamination of all the steps that led the retailer to insolvency is still very much underway.