[ThrustVectoring]

>The other creditors are far better off getting more cash

The other creditors get more cash from The Onion's offer. It was specifically structured to give better-than-next-offer remuneration to minority creditors.

[norlygfyd]

> It was specifically structured to give better-than-next-offer

That is the most farcical bit. When you strip away all the legalese, the offer was literally formulated as "next best offer + $". That is not a valid sealed-bid offer.

[wakawaka28]

The Onion didn't have the cash. It was basically an IOU from one of the families, which is like saying "the very same guy going bankrupt is going to pay us money to buy this business from him" and that makes zero sense. There was also no transparency in the bidding. It should have been a simple auction, to get the maximum amount of money.

[ThrustVectoring]

> The Onion didn't have the cash.

Correct, it was given up by the majority creditors in exchange for non-monetary considerations (specifically, the moral victory of having The Onion own Infowars).

> It was basically an IOU from one of the families

This is fine, people are allowed to act against their own financial interests. That's one thing that having ownership means is that you can ruin the thing you own for any or no reason. The court has zero reason to intervene if a majority creditor is giving up their own share of the proceeds for any or no reason.

> There was also no transparency in the bidding. It should have been a simple auction, to get the maximum amount of money.

This is a non-issue, the trustee was given wide latitude to dispose of the assets in any way he deems fit.