As the sun sets on an eight-year lawsuit over the spoils of General Motors Co.’s bankrupt predecessor, the fate of $1 billion may rest on a seemingly simple question: “What is a fixture?” Bloomberg News reported. A two-week trial has delved into this existential question for the conveyor belts, furnaces and fluid-collecting pits of old GM’s manufacturing plants, exploring when they were installed, how hard it would be to detach them from the property, and how the property would afterward be “healed.” A ruling or settlement — either of which could come after the trial concluded without a ruling on Monday — will determine whether senior creditors that were repaid in full during the 2009 bankruptcy have to give up to $1 billion to more junior creditors. The quirky case arose after lawyers accidentally terminated a senior loan by filing the wrong form in 2008, jeopardizing the rights of about 500 secured creditors. JPMorgan Chase & Co., an agent on the loan, is arguing that the mistake shouldn’t wipe out all their rights; some collateral wasn’t affected because additional filings under the Uniform Commercial Code, or UCC, protected its right to fixtures at some GM plants. General Motors’ current operations have no part in the suit.
