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Eyewitness Report From Today's SCO Bankruptcy Hearing Re Wayne Gray and AutoZone

By Pamela Jones et al.

I'm happy to tell you that we did have a reporter, MikeD, at today's SCO bankruptcy hearing. He says Bonnie Glantz Fatell is an awesome attorney. She represents SCO's Chapter 11 Trustee, Edward Cahn. We have the minutes from the hearing too, so we know how it all went.

This was the hearing mainly about two things: the AutoZone settlement agreement, the terms of which Cahn and AutoZone wanted to keep confidential, but which Joseph McMahon, the trial attorney from the US Trustee's Office had objected to having sealed; and second, the Wayne Gray motion [PDF], opposed by Cahn, to lift the stay so Gray could more or less compel SCO to investigate trademark claims on trademarks Gray claims SCO owns but SCO said a couple of years ago it doesn't own. He also wants SCO to participate in Gray's Florida litigation in some way I could never quite figure out.

The judge will issue an order, but MikeD reports that Judge Gross said clearly that he doesn't think Gray has standing. He'll take time to consider the arguments, but it sounds like curtains for Mr. Gray's hopes of SCO cooperation. As Ms. Fatell pointed out at the hearing, Gray accused SCO of fraud under the RICO Act, among other things, and now he is asking SCO to help him out in his appeal. What are the odds of that happening? As for the allegations of fraud, Gray wanted an investigation, but the judge said that will not happen.

As for AutoZone, MikeD says that at the hearing it was mentioned that both IBM and Novell have seen the settlement under an NDA, and they had no objection. The minutes seemed to indicate to me that the sealing will be allowed under certification of counsel, but MikeD reports that the judge is still considering the issue in some way. Happily, MikeD purchased for us a transcript of the day, and as soon as I have a chance to read it, I'll clarify on that point, if I can. I also want to see the exact wording about a question from the judge to Gray's attorney about whether Gray is a competitor in some way to "the transferee" from Novell. The attorney answered "Could be". That would mean he thinks he is competing against X/Open? Or SCO? I think the former, but again, one has to ask, what is this really all about? There is an X factor that we are missing in this puzzle, something we haven't been told yet. Anyway, I know you join me in thanking MikeD for attending on our behalf. These intriguing details are not in the minutes from the court, needless to say.

Full post as published by Groklaw on November 20, 2009 (boomark / email).