The final hearing on the Boy Scouts of America’s proposed reorganization plan and underlying sex abuse settlement has been pushed back to allow survivors who may want to change their votes on the pact more time to understand recently revised terms of the deal, Reuters reported. On Friday, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Laurie Selber Silverstein in Wilmington, Del., who is overseeing the youth organization's bankruptcy and will ultimately decide whether to approve the abuse deal, pushed the start of the hearing, which had already been postponed, to March 14. David Buchbinder, an attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice's bankruptcy watchdog, the U.S. Trustee, along with other lawyers, told Silverstein that the recent changes were significant and would likely be confusing to some survivors. The Boy Scouts announced an amended deal on Feb. 10 that brought in key support for the settlement from the official committee representing survivors in the youth organization’s bankruptcy. Survivors have long been split on the deal, but with the committee now on board, the organization is reaching out to survivors who opposed the settlement in an attempt to persuade them to change their votes. The Irving, Texas-based youth group filed for bankruptcy in February 2020 to resolve decades of sex abuse allegations. The settlement still includes a $2.7 billion trust to compensate men who say they were sexually abused as children by troop leaders. But it also provides for an “independent review” option for survivors who say they were subject to especially severe abuse, allowing for a more in-depth evaluation of their claims than the originally envisioned plan. That option comes with a fee of up to $20,000.
