The stores may be closed, thousands of people who worked in them no longer have jobs and corporate headquarters in Union, NJ is a ghost town, empty of all those buyers and executives who made the fabled retailer work the way it did, successfully it must be said for 50 years.
But Bed Bath & Beyond’s attorneys appear to still be on the job, both filing and answering any number of law suits and legal matters. What’s that cliché that when all else is gone, the lawyers will still be around to collect their fees?
Any number of law suits – both incoming and outgoing – are in process as Bed Bath & Beyond itself pretty much ceases to exist. It has sold off its intellectual properties, closed its stores, distribution centers and offices and while some version of its public stock continues to trade on the penny stock market – 18 cents a share most recently with 1.677 million trading by mid-day Friday, Sept. 15 – the only place the company can be found is in courtrooms and legal filings.
The most recent legal entanglement came when the company filed a complaint with the U.S. Federal Maritime Commission charging that Taiwanese shipping company Yang Ming did not ship 85% of the cargo it was contracted to in 2021 and 2022. It said this caused it to use other, more expensive carriers to get its goods or just forgo shipments entirely. It is seeking at least $7.68 million in damages according to a report from the online website Splash247.com. The site did not say if the carrier had responded to the complaint.
It’s the second such charge BBB has made this year: it claimed over $30 million from Orient Overseas Container Line, a Hong Kong shipper over “exploitive and unjust business practices during the pandemic,” Slash247 reported.
Not all the legal proceedings are coming from BBB. Former employees have filed a number of suits over unjust layoff practices, done without the proper notification. The most high-profile legal filing from a former employee came earlier this year when former CEO Mark Tritton sued the company in April over unpaid severance amounting to close to $7 million. There are no updates on any of these proceedings but no doubt lawyers have been busy filing motions and assorted legalese…all the while billing by the hour.
There’s also a group of former employees who have filed a class action suit in Newark, NJ federal court claiming “imprudence” on the part of the committee that oversaw their 401(k) retirement plan. They said they lost more than $5 million, according to a Reuters report, because the committee “breached its fiduciary duties” by not redirecting investments to less risky places given BBB’s meltdown. Reuters said Bed Bath lawyers did not respond to their request for comment.
And let’s not forget that Ryan Cohen, the rogue investor who swooped in and bought about 10% of the company last year and then suddenly sold it pocketing $60 million in the process, is also being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission for possibly illegal trading activities according to a Wall Street Journal report.
There are probably other suits in process that haven’t come to light given the retailer’s demise but certainly those we know about will keep BBB lawyers busy for some time to come…no doubt far beyond when former employee unemployment benefits expire.
WarrensReport 