The sale of assets by the Debtors to New Chrysler is not a sale that was negotiated by independent parties at arm’s length. Rather, it is a sale that was orchestrated entirely by the Treasury and foisted upon the Debtors without regard to corporate formalities, the fiduciary duties of the Debtors’ officers and directors or the other important checks and balances typically found in good faith sales. Indeed, well before the filing, the Debtors had ceased to function as an independent company and had become an instrumentality of the government. President Obama, in his public statements, made it clear that the Debtors would be required to pursue the sale transaction with Fiat and ordered the Debtors to cease all efforts to pursue any other transaction.

The Treasury Department relies on TARP as the purported authority to justify the disparate treatment under the 363 Sale, even though TARP was enacted after the Senior Lenders’ liens on the Debtors’ property were already in place. The Supreme Court long ago recognized, however, that a secured creditor’s interest in specific property is protected in bankruptcy under the Fifth Amendment.

I guess the judge did not read it the same as the bond holders. Imagine that?

And that becomes "total disregard for the rule of law"? Really? I fail to see how these "bondholders", if they are the ones that purchased distressed debt can be arguing from anything other than a point to acquire more profit. The only justice they see is they get more money. To say nothing of the "product" they chose to purchase.

All I see is the attempt at defending naked greed. I reject the defense.

If it happens in bankruptcy court, and due process is observed, it IS "rule of law."

it's nice to see, after 30 years of right wing rule, SOME restraint of corporate/wall street tyranny and a govt. which is not a total slave to it but responds to the interests of people in the society who are NOT the holders of vast accumulated wealth.

The bankruptcy judge, I'm sure, knew the whole story before he even got the case. Most bankruptcy folks (I'm a lawyer in that arena) know about the big bankruptcy cases. Judge Gonzalez wanted to tell the dissident hedge funds -- right up front -- to sit down and shut up. They won't, but they're going to lose, lose, lose. The judge probably thinks the necessity of being in bankruptcy court is silly -- with all the federal money available, this should have all been settled outside of court.

I don't have a disagreement with the decision, but I do with the celerity of the decision. The creditors did have good points:

1) They were legally first in line.

2) The govt pushed them around.

3) As a minority shareholder, it is important that the court look after their interests. That's their only means of addressing problems with the majority.

Again, I see both sides in this case, and I can understand why the judge ruled as he did. But, in doing so, he should have at least made a bigger deal of the legitimacy of these creditor's concerns. As well, the govt pissing on creditors in public is short sighted.

Careful, you are showing too much empathy.

So the "bondholders" (I'm not sure why you use quotation marks) are only arguing about well-established bankuptcy law because of their greedy desire for more profit? Saying that investors are after profit is not much of a revelation - can you tell me why they shouldn't be going after profit? Please explain why we should abandon capitalism just because the UAW never thought to ask that their pension and post-retirement healthcare obligations be funded by the Big 3.

Congressman Scott Garrett makes a good point:

http://garrett.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=124980

What should we say to the working-class Americans who work on the assembly lines to build cars for the American people? They have no vast accumulated wealth. They deserve to be treated with fairness under the law. But instead, in Obama's America, if they belong to the UAW then they are part of the President's ever-growing list of protected groups and if they happen to be non-UAW they have to compete against government enities funded by taxpayer dollars. This is the essence of liberalism: the belief that corrupt politicians are better suited to distribute the wealth of the nation than the people who earned that wealth.

Walter Reuther asked for a public health care system many years ago, and big Auto said no. So now we have to bail out Big Auto. As far as I can tell, the UAW retirement/health fund has a large chunk of Chrysler stock, but this stock is NOT controlled by the UAW - only one UAW member sits on the board, and the rest of it is a private entity.

As for YeahOKSure fighting for autoworkers, you don't fool anyone. Bankruptcy is shit for autoworkers, as they will make more concessions. The hedge funds - and that is your area - don't care about the UAW and the autoworkers unless they can make a profit off the investment. They wanted bankruptcy, because the bankruptcy laws are constructed to screw the workers and make the investors - bondholders - happy. Gee, it didn't work that way. Well Obama was ELECTED by those autoworkers. And yes, the government IS better at handling the auto industry than capitalism. It's called a (representative) democracy, not a dictatorship of bondholders last I checked.

The law itself is written by Wall Street, or might well have been. So, assuming you are correct, which I doubt, an unjust law was trampled? Oh, what a shame, what a shame, what a shame.

I understand that you believe anyone who works on Wall Street is worhtless scum. You believe that buying and selling stock doesn't create anything and that the shares of stock don't represent anything. Who am I to dissuade you from those beliefs? But please explain to me why the government should be allowed to pick favorites among people who do the exact same job (assembling cars) simply to reward some for their political support and punish others because they happen to live in the South where they make good cars without unions. Keep in mind that someday the tables will have turned and equal protection under the law could be denied to liberals just as easily.