Trigeant: Court partially resolves, partially denies sanctions motion

By Caroline Salls

Pittsburgh, Dec. 12 - Trigeant, Ltd.'s motion for an order to show cause why putative lender BTB Refining LLC should not be sanctioned for willfully violating the automatic stay imposed by Trigeant's bankruptcy filing was partially resolved and partially denied Thursday by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida.

As previously reported, Trigeant's sanctions motion accused BTB of beginning to dismantle a refinery in violation of the bankruptcy court's automatic stay.

"If BTB is not required to immediately stop its willful violations of the automatic stay and restore the refinery to its pre-petition condition, the debtor's estate will be irreparably harmed and there is a real risk that serious environmental violations will occur," the motion said.

Trigeant said BTB requested relief from the automatic stay to allow it to proceed with an appeal pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that includes Trigeant as an appellee.

The appeal centers on whether Trigeant owns an asphalt production plant in Corpus Christi, Texas.

The issue is whether the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas properly held that BTB's March 2008 foreclosure of the refining plant constituted a fraudulent transfer under the Texas Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act.

Although Trigeant is an appellee, BTB said it has not taken a position in the appeal on the ultimate ownership of or priority liens on the refining plant. BTB and PDVSA Petroleo SA are the main parties in the appeal.

If BTB is successful on the appeal, then Trigeant's principal asset will not constitute property of its estate.

Trigeant said BTB's goal is to lower the value of the refinery to obtain ownership and derail the bankruptcy.

Order terms

According to Thursday's order, BTB has agreed to return a LACT units and not remove or render unusable other personal property necessary to the operation of the refinery, subject to its right to seek relief from the court to retake possession of all of the property and seek compensation as an administrative expense for its use, adequate protection, or any other applicable remedy.

Also under the order, Trigeant will not attempt to access any proprietary information of BTB on any computers or intentionally access other proprietary property that is not critical to the operation of the refinery.

In addition, the court said the parties must cooperate with BTB's securing and removal of the proprietary information.

BTB also agreed not to shut down boilers, provided that Trigeant gives adequate assurance that it is prepared to resume operation of the refinery and has adequate insurance in place to do so.

BTB further agreed to cooperate with Trigeant in the transitioning of utility services at the premises to Trigeant, and Trigeant is authorized to have utility services for the property in its name and for its account, the filing said.

Trigeant, a Boca Raton, Fla.-based, petroleum company, filed for bankruptcy on Dec. 2. The Chapter 11 case number is 13-38580.

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