The recently-pardoned founding father of Nikola, Trevor Milton, has been combating a subpoena from the collectors of his bankrupt electrical trucking firm.
The official committee of unsecured collectors within the chapter case despatched the subpoena to Milton’s legal professionals on April 1, based on a latest submitting. Milton owed Nikola practically $100 million earlier than it filed for chapter in February, which adopted an arbitration case with the corporate in 2023 associated to his legal conviction that he misplaced.
The committee says Milton nonetheless hasn’t paid, and is attempting to make use of the subpoena to find out the present state of his monetary affairs.
Earlier than it went bankrupt, Nikola sued Milton in federal courtroom in Arizona, and accused him of “fraudulently transferring away tens of tens of millions of {dollars} of his belongings as a way to hinder, delay, and defraud [Nikola] in [its] makes an attempt to gather upon the Arbitration Award,” based on the committee.
Milton has spent the final two months combating the subpoena, based on the submitting. The corporate’s legal professionals have informed the choose they consider the fabric sought by the collectors is topic to a protecting order within the Arizona case.
The battle over the subpoena will doubtless come to a head throughout a listening to scheduled for June 9.
Legal professionals representing the collectors’ committee and Milton didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.
Most of Nikola’s belongings have already been bought off within the chapter course of. Lucid Motors bought the leases on Nikola’s Arizona manufacturing unit and headquarters, and employed round 300 of its staff. An public sale firm purchased Nikola’s remaining fleet of hydrogen-powered vans.
That has left the arbitration award as one of many largest, and essential, remaining belongings in Nikola’s property.
Previous to submitting for chapter, Nikola was hit with a category motion shareholder lawsuit associated to the deceptive claims it made throughout the technique of changing into a public firm. Whereas Nikola settled a case with the Securities and Change Fee over these claims, the shareholder lawsuit was nonetheless ongoing when the corporate tipped into chapter 11.
The plan from the outset of the chapter was to make use of Milton’s arbitration award to settle the shareholder lawsuit. However Milton “has but to pay a cent,” the creditor committee mentioned within the submitting. Alongside the best way, Milton, who was interesting his four-year jail sentence, was granted a shock pardon by President Trump. Just some weeks later, Nikola’s legal professionals accused Milton of attempting to derail the chapter case.
In the meantime, Milton has commissioned a documentary that’s set to premiere on June 10, which he guarantees will inform the “true story about how the so known as ‘justice system’ practically destroyed an harmless man.”
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