Gawker-destroyer and former heavyweight champion Hulk Hogan is attempting to halt Gawker Media’s bankruptcy sale to publisher Ziff Davis on the grounds that the sale potentially gives away valuable and unfair “avoidance actions” rights.
Ziff Davis are reported to have offered Gawker $90 million for the media empire, which includes the rights to pursue “avoidance actions.” Using avoidance actions, Ziff Davis could take back large payments made by Gawker shortly before their declared bankruptcy and attempt to lessen the overall damage made by Hogan in court.
Hogan’s lawyers claim that the sale of avoidance actions rights “frustrates the policy goals” of their intended purpose, and will leave the decision of who gets sued and who doesn’t down to Ziff Davis instead of the creditors. As such, Hogan’s lawyers will attempt to block Gawker’s purchase by Ziff Davis in July.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Hogan’s lawyers told the outlet that “selling the avoidance actions could be particularly unfair in Gawker’s case, because there were likely also intercompany movements of cash before the bankruptcy. That money, too, could be subject to reclamation by creditors.”
It was revealed in May that PayPal co-founder and libertarian Peter Thiel had been funding Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker. Hogan defeated the controversial outlet and was awarded $140 million in compensation after Gawker posted a clip from the former wrestler’s leaked sex tape without permission.
Thiel described his secret funding of the lawsuit as “one of my greater philanthropic things that I’ve done” and defended his involvement with Hogan, stating that Gawker “ruined people’s lives for no reason.” Thiel was outed by Gawker as a homosexual to the public in 2007, a part of his life that he had wanted to keep private.
Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech and former editor of the Squid Magazine. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook.
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