Weinstein Company seeks to liquidate to end bankruptcy, court papers show
The Weinstein Company said it plans to liquidate in bankruptcy, as it tries to resolve civil lawsuits against former directors and officers arising from sexual misconduct claims against the onetime Hollywood mogul.
Lawyers for the company, once run by Harvey Weinstein, asked a Delaware bankruptcy judge to convert the studio’s bankruptcy to a Chapter 7 liquidation from the Chapter 11 case filed in March 2018, according to papers filed on Tuesday night. Several rounds of mediation over the last 10 months have failed to resolve liability claims arising from Weinstein’s alleged misconduct, the lawyers said.
Weinstein, 67, fell from grace after more than 70 women, mostly young actors and others in the movie business, accused him of sexual assaults dating back decades.
The revelations, when some key witnesses went public by giving their accounts to the media, helped spawned the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment and sexual assault, especially in the workplace.
The Weinstein Company had about 100 employees when it filed for bankruptcy in March last year, at that time listing $500m to $1bn in liabilities and the same range in assets.
The studio’s bankruptcy comes after it had already spent months looking for a buyer or investor, without success. A hearing on the conversion request is scheduled for 4 June.
Launched in October 2005, the studio produced and distributed critically acclaimed hits including The King’s Speech and Silver Linings Playbook, as well as TV series such as long-running fashion reality competition Project Runway.
Before that, Weinstein ran the studio Miramax Films, where senior executives who had worked for him there described an atmosphere of psychological abuse and bullying, enabling his alleged sexual misconduct to go unchallenged for decades.
Several former colleagues spoke to the Guardian in 2017 when the story about Weinstein broke to the world, with one describing the company as being like a cult, a second describing the internal atmosphere as sadistic and a third saying Weinstein hurled a glass picture frame at her in the midst of an argument.