AAN Association of Alternative Newsmedia

Bay Guardian: VVM Loses Another Court Ruling

january 14, 2010 06:43 pm

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:
Tim Redmond
415-487-2554 Village Voice chain loses another court ruling

New Times Media LLC, the holding company for the Village Voice chain, has failed in its attempt to suspend the charging order entered last week in San Francisco Superior Court in favor of the Bay Guardian.

The charging order gives the Guardian a lien on all of VVM's newspaper properties and furthers the independent local paper's efforts to enforce a $21 million judgment.

Commissioner Everett A. Hewlett, Jr., rejected on the attempted Ex Parte Motion to Stay brought by New Times on the basis that New Times failed to show the existence of any emergency.

Commissioner Hewlett also held that to suspend the charging order, New Times would have to post an appeal bond as in any other civil case, instead of a much smaller amount that was sought by New Times' counsel.

New Times' attorney Randall S. Farrimond argued that New Times could not post an appeal bond for the full amount, because it was merely a holding company and does not have any assets.

But Bay Guardian attorney Jay D. Adkisson pointed to a financial analysis produced prior to trial by New Times, which showed that New Times claimed total assets of $191 million as late as December, 2007.

New Times and its subsidiary SF Weekly LP collectively owe the Bay Guardian nearly $21 million resulting from a jury verdict for predatory pricing that was entered in 2008.

In 2008, shortly after the jury verdict, New Times was successful in obtaining a temporary suspension of the judgment similar to the one that it unsuccessfully sought on Monday, but then refused to post an appellate bond.

New Times has instead attempted to rely on its complex corporate structure to defeat the collection of the judgment while it pursues its appeal.