How Gawker sidestepped billionaire Peter Thiel’s vendetta

As far as legal strategies go, Gawker Media’s move on Friday to evade a deep-pocketed enemy by filing for bankruptcy is hardly the sort of brash, risky gambit for which the publisher is known. It’s a tried-and-true legal manoeuvre.

Companies that lose big at trial often run across the street to bankruptcy court, looking for protection from their newest – and usually biggest – creditor. In the case of Nick Denton and his web publishing empire, the decision to seek court protection had the added benefit of buying time.

A judge in Florida declined to overturn the US$140 million state court judgment in the Hulk Hogan sex tape case, so the bankruptcy petition stopped the clock, allowing Gawker to focus on selling off its best units, including Gizmodo and Deadspin, to media giant Ziff Davis for US$100 million, according to people familiar with the deal. The sale will take place as a bankruptcy auction, allowing for better bids down the line. In doing so, Gawker sidestepped, for now, paying off Hogan’s invasion-of-privacy verdict in a case funded by Denton’s declared nemesis, tech billionaire Peter Thiel, who has been helping bankroll Hogan’s case and others. Gawker’s lawyers also asked the Manhattan bankruptcy court to shield Denton himself from paying the verdict, as well as other lawsuits, a request that isn’t guaranteed to be granted.

“Forestalling payment on the judgment seems to be the purpose of this bankruptcy,” said Lynn LoPucki, a bankruptcy expert and law professor at the University of California-Los Angeles. He explained that “a judgment is simply a mature debt”, like the thousands of dollars Gawker owes its law firms, Google and others. And in bankruptcy, payment of those debts is stayed.