Ruby Pipeline slams ‘ultra-aggressive’ attempts to end exclusivity

By Sarah Lizee

Olympia, Wash., June 10 – Ruby Pipeline LLC said the recent attempts by two creditor groups to end the company’s exclusivity periods are a “coordinated, unprecedented and ultra-aggressive tactic” to malign the debtor and its independent managers.

As previously reported, less than two months into the Chapter 11 case, the official committee of unsecured creditors and an informal group of noteholders sought to end the company’s exclusive periods to file and solicit votes on a plan.

The creditors claimed the company’s equity sponsors have refused to engage in discussions with them, and the debtor has “made no semblance of progress” toward a resolution of the Chapter 11 case. They noted that the company still hadn’t filed bid procedures or started a marketing process.

The creditor groups said that if the company’s exclusivity isn’t terminated, a Chapter 11 trustee should be appointed.

Ruby fired back on Friday, saying the motion to terminate is “a transparent attempt – after failed negotiations – to use this public forum to bully the independent managers into giving unsecured creditors unprecedented rights, or face the committee’s and ad hoc group’s wrath to malign their professional reputations.”

The company said the committee and informal group must demonstrate extraordinary circumstances and gross mismanagement of the bankruptcy case to terminate the exclusive periods.

“To no surprise, the committee is unable to meet this burden, and tellingly, offers no evidence whatsoever to support any allegation that the debtor has mismanaged the bankruptcy case in any way, let alone in an egregious manner as the law requires.”

Ruby Pipeline, based in Houston, is a subsidiary of El Paso Corp. and Global Infrastructure Partners LLC. It is a 680-mile natural gas pipeline that stretches from Wyoming to Oregon. The company filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy on March 31 under case number 22-10278.

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