A judge has approved the sale of dormant blog Gawker to Bustle owner Bryan Goldberg for $1.35 million, closing the book on the liquidation of the former gossip and culture blog’s former publisher, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Judge Stuart Bernstein said that he would approve the deal during a court hearing yesterday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York. Goldberg is the founder and chief executive of Bustle Digital Group, publisher of websites aimed at millennial women including Bustle and Elite Daily. He emerged last week as the top bidder at an auction for Gawker, which has sat dormant in chapter 11 since 2016. Gregg Galardi, a bankruptcy lawyer representing Gawker’s former publisher, said at the hearing that the blog was the company’s last remaining asset to be liquidated and the transaction allows him to close the chapter 11 case more than two years after it began. The blog’s former publisher, Gawker Media LLC, was forced into bankruptcy in 2016 after losing a lawsuit brought by Hulk Hogan resulting in a $140 million judgement against the company. Hulk Hogan’s case was secretly funded by billionaire Peter Thiel. Gawker Media has maintained the judgement would have been reduced or overturned had it had the financial means to mount an appeal.
