Sears Holdings – Court Approves Seal for DIP ABL Financing Facility Fee Letter

October 18, 2018 – The Court hearing the Sears Holdings case approved the Debtors’ motion to file commercially sensitive portions of a fee letter relating to its DIP ABL Financing Facility under seal.  [Docket No. 177]. As previously reported [Docket No. 57], “The Fee Letter contains confidential commercial information concerning the commercial contract terms between the Company and the DIP Lenders. In accordance with custom and practice in the finance industry, proprietary pricing information is generally not made publicly available. Given the highly competitive nature of the investment banking and finance lending industries, disclosure of such pricing information would give competitors an unfair strategic advantage and thereby impair the ability of financial institutions to bid and compete for other financing’s. Further, because debtor-in-possession financings are only a small fraction of all syndicated financing’s arranged by the DIP ABL Credit Parties, requiring them to disclose certain information concerning their fees in this context but not in others could have a ‘chilling effect’ discouraging them and other competitor institutions from providing debtor-in-possession financing facilities on terms favorable to the debtors.”