Summary: Harvey Weinstein’s former production company stated that it will file for bankruptcy.
After the New York Attorney General filed a lawsuit against the Weinstein Company, the production company’s pending deal for a buyout was canceled; and now the company appears to be heading for bankruptcy, according to Bloomberg.
The Weinstein Company announced this decision on Sunday in an emailed letter to its investors who had backed out of their deal.
“While we deeply regret that your actions have led to this unfortunate outcome for our employees, our creditors and any victims, we will now pursue the board’s only viable option to maximize the company’s remaining value: an orderly bankruptcy process,” the Weinstein Company said.
The Weinstein Company will file bankruptcy after the collapse of their pending deal with an investment group led by Maria Contreras-Sweet. Contreras-Sweet had planned to buy the troubled New York-based company for $500 million, but she and her team balked after New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman filed a lawsuit that would require the Weinstein Company’s new owners to follow orders from the AG’s office.
Last October, The New York Times published an expose about the Weinstein Company’s founder, Harvey Weinstein, and his decades of sexual misconduct against women such as Ashley Judd and Rose McGowan. The article prompted dozens of other women to come forward with their own sexual misconduct stories against Weinstein, and it inspired the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements to go viral.
Weinstein was fired from the Weinstein Company, a powerful production company he created with his brother Bob Weinstein, and the once powerful mogul faces possible criminal charges from police stations in New York, London, and Los Angeles.
On Sunday, the Weinstein Company announced that their bankruptcy was due to the backing out of Contreras-Sweet, whose company was financed by billionaire Ron Burkle. Contreras-Sweet’s group wanted to buy the Weinstein Company and have Weinstein’s former right-hand-man, COO David Glasser, take charge. However, the Glasser promotion hit a snag when Schneiderman accused him of allowing Weinstein’s bad behavior to happen.
In response to Schneiderman’s lawsuit filed earlier this month, Glasser was fired. In the lawsuit, he said that the Weinstein Company buyout was unacceptable and that the deal should have included a multi-million dollar fund to pay off Weinstein’s alleged victims of sexual harassment and assault.
Schneiderman had requested to oversee the Weinstein Company’s operations because he said that the current structure had allowed Weinstein to abuse women. This demand did not go over well with Contreras-Sweet.
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