Harvey Weinstein’s former movie studio is seeking to liquidate in bankruptcy, a final blow to a prestigious Hollywood institution that imploded when Weinstein was accused of abusing multiple women, the New York Times reported. In a bankruptcy filing on Tuesday, lawyers for the studio, the Weinstein Company, said it was burning through what little cash it had left. The Weinstein Company filed for bankruptcy in March 2018 and promptly sold off many of its assets to a private-equity firm, Lantern Capital Partners, making a liquidation seem likely. The studio, which helped make award-winning films like “The King’s Speech” and “The Artist,” collapsed after dozens of women publicly accused Weinstein, its former chief executive, of sexual misconduct and assault dating back years. He also faces criminal charges in New York and has pleaded not guilty. The move to liquidate requires approval by the bankruptcy judge. The Weinstein Company has been negotiating for more than a year with insurers, creditors and women who have sued for compensation for abuse, and the filing could be legal maneuvering intended to speed up a resolution. The filing said efforts to resolve legal claims by some of the women had stalled in recent months, putting more strain on dwindling resources. But lawyers for some of the women and the New York attorney general’s office painted a more optimistic picture of the mediation process, according to a separate bankruptcy filing yesterday. The parties are literally days away from receiving a proposed global resolution,” the lawyers said in the filing, adding that the settlement would include “remuneration for Harvey Weinstein’s victims.”
