Almost four months ago, the bankrupt estate of Sears Holdings Corp. sued Eddie Lampert and U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin over allegedly wrongful transfers of $2 billion in company assets, Bloomberg News reported. Now lawyers representing the two men have asked the federal judge overseeing the retailer’s chapter 11 case to lift the bankruptcy stay so Sears insurance policies can pay their legal fees, according to a new court filing. Before Sears went bankrupt in October, the company carried a $150 million insurance policy that covered its officers and directors against legal fees and expenses, according to the filing. Lampert was chairman of the Sears board starting in 2005 and chief executive officer from 2013, while Mnuchin was a director of Sears from 2005 until 2016, court papers show. “The director defendants should be permitted to immediately obtain reimbursement for their fees and expenses in accordance with the policies’ terms,” the filing states. Lawyers for a handful of other Sears directors, including Thomas Tisch, Alesia Haas, Kunal Kamlani and Bruce Berkowitz, also asked for the stay to be lifted so the insurance could pay their clients’ legal fees. The estate doesn’t object to lifting the stay for the insurance payments, according to the filing.
