David Rubenstein into the Rogoff bankruptcy fray

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A LOT OF FORMERS, ALL IN COURT

The former husband of the former owner of the Alaska Dispatch News is getting involved in the bankruptcy proceedings of his former wife, Alice Rogoff.

Rogoff filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Aug. 12, and that proceeding eventually became a Chapter 7 liquidation, which is now being sorted out by the courts. David Rubenstein, her ex, is getting dragged in.

This week, Rogoff’s attorney asked the court to hold off granting access to her bank accounts until Rubenstein’s lawyers can take a look at them.

Rogoff is battling the bankruptcy plaintiffs who want her to use her personal finances to make whole the dozens of creditors she — or her broken company technically — has across Alaska. There are debts in the millions of dollars to everyone from reporters to GCI. In addition, she said her company owes her over $16 million, too.

Rogoff sold the news operation to the Binkley Company in September for $1 million after she had run the newspaper into the ground. The Binkley Co. restored the newspaper’s former name, the Anchorage Daily News.

While Rubenstein’s finanical strength would allow the jet-setting financier to simply pay off Rogoff’s creditors, he’s evidently not willing to do that yet. Instead, he has hired lawyers to file an objection to anyone seeing the terms of their marital settlement.

“Rogoff’s ex-husband David Rubenstein has a contractual confidentiality right in the MSA (marital settlement agreement) that must be respected,” his attorneys wrote the courts. If the terms of the settlement are probed, Rubenstein’s lawyers are saying they’ll seek remedies, although they don’t say what remedies they have in mind.

Rogoff is politically connected, but Rubenstein is a political powerhouse, and that might come into play. If the contractors, suppliers and former landlords thought they were simply battling an eccentric heiress who skips out on her bills, they’re now facing a sultan of the upper crust of American society, one who has real resources that he can bring to bear.

The Alaska Journal of Commerce has the latest twists and turns in a case that has fascinated Alaskans.

[Read: Rubenstein wants agreement with ex-wife kept out of court]

6 COMMENTS

  1. She owes herself 16 million. If she kept putting her own money in then you have to look at her finances. And if her and her husbands finances were mixed then you have to look at that also. If she payed everyone but herself off it would be cheaper then the lawyers I bet.

  2. I asked this question once before. Is it possible to negotiate a settlement with creditors while in bankruptcy?

  3. Note to Suzanne: Whenever a story includes a description of a person as a “… sultan of the upper crust of American society…” we are losing ground. In theory, all Americans are equal in the eyes of the law. The front of the United States Supreme Court building bears the inscription “Equal Justice Under Law.” While I do understand that aspiration is not always attainable, when we commoners give up on that idea, our democracy is diminished.

    For example, in my humble Alaskan opinion, I do not care how much money David Rubenstein has, what he does, or who his friends are — if he is legally obligated to make good on some of Princess Alice’s debts, I want him to pay up. Giving this guy a pass based on his economic or social “status” nauseates me.

  4. Why do conservatives or Republicans refer to our form of government as a democracy. It is and has been a REPUBLIC for over 200 years. Thank you for letting me vent.

  5. JMark’s comments are specious: while noble in effort to respect true “equality”, J succumbs to the human frailty of describing differeing people him/herself based upon a descriptive notion, e.g. “sultan” versus “princess”. The English language is probably the most intently expressive of all off them; this allows a personal, emotion-tainted desription which serves the human side of all of us well. Consider it salt on your food.

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