Four Good Reads On NRA Bankruptcy

Bitter and Sebastian at Shall Not Be Questioned have been part of the gun blogosphere for a long, long time. While not as active as they used to be, they are still astute observers of all things NRA.

Bitter has a wonderful fisking of the NRA’s public response to Judge Hale’s dismissal of their bankruptcy case.

She concluded:

In general, this public response highlights that it’s time for Wayne to go, along with most of the yes men he has put into place. This is an embarrassment to the organization, especially as anyone remotely literate can read what the judge really said.

The blog NRA In Danger also provides a brutal fisking of the NRA’s public statement. They may be the new kids on the block in terms of blogging but whoever is writing the blog has a deep, insider knowledge of how things actually work at the NRA.

When a bankruptcy judge who has been on the bench many years, and “seen them all,” says conduct shocks him, you’re hearing it from an expert.

NRA CEO & EVP Wayne LaPierre said today’s decision – and the ongoing independence of the NRA – empowers the Association’s approximately 5 million members. 

If the suit being dismissed empowers the members, does that mean that winning the suit would have dis-empowered them?

“We will never shrink from the tough and principled stands we take”

I’m getting too nauseous to continue. Hitler in his bunker was less delusional.

We had better enjoy the NRA annual meeting in four months, because it will probably be the last annual meeting. Anyone on, or getting elected to, the board, had best face the fact that they face lifelong dishonor as a member of the board that killed this fine organization. NRA has had men who held the Medal of Honor on its board, but they have been replaced by people who tremble at the thought just of dissenting. Let the leadership go insane and destroy the 150-year-old organization, these directors would rather not grow a spine.

Frank Tait, who I supported in his efforts to win a seat on theBoard and who I will be writing in for election to the Board, looked at the bankruptcy effort from a business perspective. He, after all, has been in managerial positions for many years.

“So why did you file? We can only guess that the lawyers saw the prospect of a wealthy client who wasn’t adverse to paying big fees, and thought of nothing else. Not even the most core ideas: 1. What do we want from the court? 2. is that something the court can legally give us?”

In my 40 years in business, I’ve been involved in multiple legal disputes. There is critical mindset to legal matters. THE LAWYERS WORK FOR YOU, not the other way around. The secondary mindset is risk-reward considerations, or as a former CEO liked to say “is the juice worth the squeeze.” Both of these key mindsets appear absent from the EVP and the Officers of the Board – and the remainder of the board is not asking the tough questions that are their fiduciary obligation.

Finally, Georgetown Law professor Adam Levitin has been following the case from the start. He may not be aware of the inner dynamics of the NRA but he wrote the textbook on bankruptcy law. His verdict on the filing from a legal standpoint is that it was a fool’s errand from the start.

The NRA’s bankruptcy petition was dismissed as filed in bad faith. I’m predicting that the court’s opinion will be in the next edition of every bankruptcy textbook as the case really is a textbook example of bad faith.  The court found that there was substantial evidence in the record that the NRA filed for bankruptcy for the purpose of gaining an advantage in its litigation with the NY Attorney General, namely depriving the NY Attorney General of the remedy of dissolution, rather than for any other purpose.  

He notes he’d be surprised if the NRA appeals or refiles. Moreover, he wonders if the creditors’ attorneys will file a sanctions motion against either the NRA or its attorneys for reimbursement of their litigation costs given the bad faith filing ruling.

Read all four of these blog posts. They all take a different approach but all conclude the whole bankruptcy filing was a fiasco.

NRA Special Meeting (Update)

Rumors started on Sunday with a report by Dan Zimmerman of TTAG about Wayne LaPierre’s speech to CPAC. After saying that Wayne’s speech was old and stale, he concluded with this teaser, “The good news is, we happen to know that the NRA is actively seeking his replacement.”

Then yesterday, John Crump who writes for Ammoland.com had a tweet saying to “prepare for some big NRA news on or around March 14.”

The March 14th date was interesting because there was no hearing set on that date in either the NY Attorney General’s dissolution case nor in the NRA’s bankruptcy case.

It turns out that NRA President Carolyn Meadows has called for a special meeting of the Board of Directors to be held in Dallas on March 14th.

March 2, 2021

                                                                  OFFICIAL NOTICE

                                SPECIAL MEETING OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

TO:      Board of Directors and Executive Council

            The NRA President has called for a special meeting of the Board of Directors to take place on Sunday, March 14, 2021, at 10:00 a.m. in Dallas, Texas.  The sole purpose of the meeting is to provide a briefing to the Board regarding the NRA’s reorganization plan and the legal matters overseen by the Special Litigation Committee, and to take any necessary action directly related to those matters.

   The NRA Board of Directors and Executive Council and will meet at the Omni Dallas Hotel, 555 South Lamar Street, Dallas, Texas 75202, (214) 744-6664.  The date, time and location of all meetings are on the attached schedule of meetings and meals.  [Special Note:  The special meeting of the Board of Directors will start at 10:00 a.m. Daylight Savings Time on Sunday, March 14. Daylight Savings Time begins at 2:00 a.m. on Sunday, March 14.  On Saturday night, remember to set your clocks forward one hour (i.e., losing one hour) to “spring ahead.”]

Members in attendance are authorized reimbursement for ordinary and necessary expenses actually incurred on the following basis:

If I had to speculate – and that is always a dangerous thing – I would say that it is a move to get the Board of Directors to explicitly approve the filing for bankruptcy. You may remember that Judge Phillip Journey made the point in his motion for a court-appointed examiner that the directors’ never voted to file bankruptcy. Further, bankruptcy law expert Prof. Adam Levitin wondered if the Board had shirked its fiduciary duties by not explicitly approving a bankruptcy filing.

As the after the fact approval of many expenditures by the Board’s Audit Committee makes clear, the NRA Board has a history of approving things after the fact that should have had explicit pre-approval. This could be one of those ex post facto approvals. I would be the most surprised person in the room if it was actually to announce a replacement to Wayne LaPierre. I just don’t see a Board packed with Wayne loyalists doing that.

UDPATE: A friend who knows the NRA bylaws far better than me just pointed out something about this special meeting. According to Article IV, Section 3 (b), while the President, the Executive Committee, or the majority of the Board can call a special meeting, it has a notification requirement.

From the NRA Bylaws:

Notice of the time, place, and object of such special meetings shall be mailed to each Director at least 30 days before the date of holding such meetings.

Now I know that the NRA Bylaws don’t mean much to Wayne and company but you would think that given both the dissolution lawsuit and the bankruptcy proceedings that dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s just might be the smart way to go. I don’t know if the Board is getting their advice from William Brewer III, NRA General Counsel John Frazer, or the Board’s attorney Wit Davis but whomever said it was OK to ignore the bylaws either doesn’t give a big rat’s ass or is an idiot.

Either way, anything voted on and decided in this Special Meeting of the Board could be challenged in court as being invalid due to violating the bylaws.

More On The NRA’s Bankruptcy Filing

There was a very interesting and informative blog post regarding the NRA’s bankruptcy filing on CreditSlips.org on Friday. The post was by Georgetown law professor Adam Levitin. Levitin is an expert on bankruptcy and business restructuring. His list of publications regarding bankruptcy includes both law books and multiple law review articles.

The post says there are many issues with the filing:

This is going to be one heck of an interesting case. There are already so many glaring issues (or should I say “targets”?): venue, good faith filing, disclosures, the automatic stay, the trustee question, fiduciary duties to pursue claims against insiders, executory employment contracts, the fate of Wayne LaPierre, and the generally overlooked governance provisions of the Bankruptcy Code.

Read the whole post. The gist of it is that by filing for bankruptcy, the NRA has opened a can of worms and there could be a lot of unintended consequences. For example, if as the NY Attorney General alleges, Wayne LaPierre has a contract that guarantees his salary for life even if removed, bankruptcy law limits that to one year’s salary.

I hope this is the last post I have to do on the NRA filing for bankruptcy for the time being. There are other important matters to write about such as the virtual Shot Show that starts today.