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Closing Bell

Dodgers, MLB Square Off In Delaware Court For Bankruptcy Hearing

The Dodgers bankruptcy hearing got underway this afternoon with the team and MLB squaring off over the future of the club. Just prior to the hearing, MLB offered to lend the club emergency funding, a move the team called “nothing other than a thinly veiled effort to take control over” the club. But MLB said its financing was for 7% interest rate on a $150M loan, and did not contain the $4.5M fee the club’s proposed deal with HighBridge Capital does. HighBridge, a hedge fund that is a unit of JPMorgan Chase, would charge 10% for its $150M.

Judge Kevin Gross of the Delaware bankruptcy court said he would not decide today, and much of the early afternoon was consumed by minor motions like paying off a credit card bill that covers player travel expenses, utilities and a small tab for an academy in the Dominican Republic. MLB outside counsel Tom Lauria of White & Case blasted the Dodgers for failing to notify MLB of the intended bankruptcy, which was filed yesterday. “It is amazing MLB was not provided with advanced notice of the filing,” he told the court.

Lauria said MLB is not at loggerheads with the team, but only Owner Frank McCourt. MLB accused McCourt in court filings of siphoning off $100M from the franchise. That charge, the team countered in court papers, was evidence of the vitriol directed at the club by MLB Commissioner Bud Selig.

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