Voyager filed its Disclosure Statement and First Amended Plan (Plan) on Friday, August 12. A primary purpose of a Chapter 11 plan is to define how creditors’ and customers’ claims are proposed to be treated. For a business such as Voyager’s, the plan would be expected to include how customers’ claims will be treated. A disclosure statement typically describes the plan, the debtors’ history, events leading to bankruptcy, and for debtors that intend to operate after bankruptcy, includes projections of its future under the plan (along with a liquidation analysis to compare the plan with a liquidation of the debtors).

Calling Voyager’s Plan a shell is an overstatement to anyone who has ever searched for crustaceans by the seashore. It does not indicate what customers or creditors will receive. It does not indicate what Voyager’s future will or may hold, since the bidding process is still underway and there is no way to know whether there will be one or more “white knights” or if Voyager will seek to keep existing management in charge.

The Disclosure Statement contains a dearth of financial information and no projections. It basically says that somebody somewhere will do something sometime about the situation. Aside from the expansive release provisions (more on that below), it is little more than a placeholder to start the clock on requisite notice periods in advance of a planned September 15 hearing date.

Asking for important details reminds one of the classic Abbott and Costello comedy routine—“Who’s on First.”

            Who will run Voyager in the future? No one knows.

            What will creditors and customers get? That’s anyone’s guess.

            I don’t know what the plan will be (other than the releases). Neither does Voyager.

            Why is it going forward as barely a shell? Full speed ahead!

            Because when any plan will become effective after all regulatory approvals is anyone’s guess. No one knows how many regulators will need to approve it.

            Tomorrow is another day where we won’t know any more. And we’ll still be wondering.

            Today we don’t know how this will come out.

While the creditors have no information on what they might receive or when they might receive it, the release provisions (starting on page 42 of the Plan) require you to “follow the bouncing ball” as the defined terms wind through the provisions. The discharge, release, exculpation, and injunction provisions should be read in connection with one another and with the defined terms (pages 1 – 13 of the Plan).

The sale process continues, and more will be known as the clock advances. At this point, it’s just too soon to know who’s on first.