Bankruptcy

Peter Thiel's Lawyers Say They Want To Buy Gawker's Vault

But are his lawyers more worried about the millions in potential claims?

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Peter Thiel (Image by Dan Taylor)

It hardly seems like it’s been a year since Peter Thiel successfully murdered Gawker. And yet, the bankruptcy court fight is really starting to heat up with Thiel looking to double tap Gawker’s corpse while the Administrator is weighing suing Thiel to get the money to pay Hulk Hogan.

As a refresher, after years of funding a steady stream of unsuccessful suits designed to jack up their cost of doing business to the point where it became unsustainable, Thiel struck gold with the website’s decision to publish Hulk Hogan’s sex tape and a very helpful Florida state judge. Just like that, Gawker was out of business. It was the sort of vicious broadside against the free press that’s become all too common among wealthy public figures who’ve figured out that the court system is ready-made to do their bidding.

Not that Gawker didn’t rise to its greatest successes without flexing its relative wealth. Gawker was able to push back against some of the establishment media’s most sacred rules because it was never intimidated by the prospect of going to court or forking over a settlement to pursue its stories. It’s a lot easier to take risks when you have the money to back it up. The journalistic old guard may find this unsavory, but that willingness to go forward is why Gawker successfully reported the sexual harassment of many of the powerful men in the news today years before the establishment media got around to it. While the New York Times dutifully racked up sources and sources for sources, Gawker had the freedom to play on common sense.

Many have noted in recent weeks that the American moment needs another Gawker. The more we watch the powerful exploit the law to cover up their misdeeds — criminal or just immoral — there’s a public service in a news outlet willing to put massive resources behind reporting “without access or favor” (to borrow a slogan from a former sister site of Gawker’s).

At least the archives remain available to inspire future generations.

Or maybe not. Peter Thiel’s lawyers have filed with the bankruptcy court to take over the archives claiming to be, wait for it, “the most able and logical purchaser” of the site. After devoting millions to killing the site, it’s safe to say all Thiel is “able” to do is delete the archives and wipe away quality journalism that, while true, he didn’t like. But, remember, Thiel supports politicians committed to keeping up Confederate statues erected in the 1950s because, “you can’t erase history!” What a country!

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Impressively, his attorneys from Skadden don’t shy away from saying Thiel intends to throw more bottomless cash to complete his quest to end Gawker forever:

The Plan Administrator has lost sight of his fiduciary duties. By wrongly excluding Mr. Thiel, the most able and logical purchaser, from the sale process on specious grounds, maintaining selective secrecy over that process, and insisting on proceeding with expensive and unwarranted discovery against him concerning alleged claims that are now being marketed to third parties, the Plan Administrator will only depress the value to be achieved in any sale. Thus, the refusal to engage with Mr. Thiel, except through hostile litigation and wasteful discovery, is contrary to the Plan Administrator’s fiduciary and contractual obligations to maximize value and conduct settlement negotiations in good faith. Obviously, if Mr. Thiel is allowed to bid on a level playing field, value will be maximized; if not, it won’t.

Translation: Thiel is the best purchaser for the estate’s stakeholders because he’ll drive up the price to get what he wants. J.K. Trotter has an excellent editorial at the Washington Post pointing out that archival shenanigans have a sinister historical precedent in the form of the Munich Post, an anti-establishment journal that committed itself to exposing the hypocrisy of the Nazi party by outing gay party leaders who trafficked in homophobia and reporting on Hitler’s affair with his own niece (which is almost certainly true — leading to her suicide to escape the relationship). The Munich Post is a good example of a publication that ignored the rules of mainstream journalism while an authoritarian tried took advantage of those rules to undermine the free press. Not that something like that could ever happen here.

But does Thiel even care about the archives? His motion suggests his real beef is with the fact that the Plan Administrator (represented by Ropes & Gray) is considering selling — along with the archives — Gawker’s claims against Thiel, potentially exposing Thiel to, in the words of the judge in a prior Memorandum Opinion, “millions if not tens of millions of dollars” in damages. Fun fact: it’s money that would mostly go to Hulk Hogan. Oh what strange bedfellows Hulk Hogan manages to find.

Whether Thiel is really eager to delete Gawker or if it was just a ploy to get leverage in the fight over the sale of claims against him — which the Bankruptcy Court has now ruled the Plan can further investigate pursuing — the Gawker bankruptcy is worth your time to monitor. Reading bankruptcy filings may not fill that Gawker-sized hole in your daily routine, but it’s a start.

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If you miss Gawker, don’t let Peter Thiel buy its archives [Washington Post]

Earlier: How Hulk Hogan Ruined America
Are Lawyers Perpetuating A Culture Of Silence Surrounding Sexual Assault?

HeadshotJoe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.

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