U.S. District Court Chief Judge Frances Tydingco-Gatewood reduced the professional fees approved for the Archdiocese of Agana's accounting firm and special immigration counsel in the church's bankruptcy case, for not complying with court orders and laws that require all bankruptcy-related billings and payments to be submitted to the court for approval, the Guam Daily Post reported. Davis & Davis PC and Deloitte & Touche LLP requested and received direct payment from the archdiocese, despite the court's issuance of "several orders dealing with the proper procedure to seek compensation," the judge said. Assistant U.S. Trustee Curtis Ching noticed the direct payments and asked the court to reduce the compensation to these firms because of violations of court orders, the Bankruptcy Code and the Bankruptcy Rules of Procedure. "These requirements are intended to protect against the 'unfairness of allowing the debtor to deplete the estate by pursuing its interests to the detriment of the creditors'," the judge wrote in her order. The creditors in the archdiocese's chapter 11 bankruptcy case include mostly clergy sex abuse claimants, who have yet to receive any compensation from the archdiocese.
