Sears Buyer Wants to Skip $43 Million Severance for Workers — When Eddie Lampert committed to buy out Sears from bankruptcy, he agreed to pay displaced workers up to $43 million. Now, he’s changing his mind.

Sears filed for bankruptcy last year.

A few years ago Eddie Lampert, a Wall Street investor, tycoon billionaire bought Sears up out of bankruptcy, and agreed at the time to pay the workers of that corporation the $43 million they were owed in severance after it inevitably shuttered its doors.

Now Lampert is asking a federal bankruptcy judge to relieve him of that duty.

He is going to screw over the workers and pocket that $43 million instead.

 

via fortune:

When Eddie Lampert committed to buy out Sears from bankruptcy, he agreed to pay displaced workers up to $43 million. Now that may not happen.

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Lampert has asked a federal bankruptcy judge to release him from that promise, saying Sears has failed to live up to its obligation to sell him most of its assets.

Lampert was in charge of Sears for years before the bankruptcy filing and some people blame him for the retailer’s financial woes. He served as chairman and former CEO of the company through its bankruptcy filing.

The $43 million was earmarked for employees who lost their jobs during the hundreds of store closings from the time of the bankruptcy filing through the time Lampert’s ESL Investments (via a new subsidiary called Transform Holdco) bought the company holdings.

Lampert says Sears has not fallen short on several fronts, including handing over ownership of its headquarters in Chicago and delaying payments to key vendors. Sears Holdings, meanwhile, has sued Lampert, saying he stripped $2 billion in assets, which could have been used to pay creditors, from the company as it veered toward bankruptcy.

 

 

h/t User_Name13

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