GNP drops $19,000 suit against East Millinocket

EAST MILLINOCKET – The trustee of Great Northern Paper Inc.’s bankrupt estate has failed to get the town and its water department to return $19,000 it was paid by the paper company before the bankruptcy filing, town officials said Wednesday.

Attorneys representing GNP trustee Gary Growe and the town and East Millinocket Water Works agreed to the dismissal on Monday, according to paperwork the town received.

Town Administrative Assistant Shirley Tapley said she was pleased.

“It’s just a relief to get this behind us,” Tapley said Wednesday. “The attorneys’ fees alone could have really gotten out of hand.”

The town likely will have to pay about $2,350 in legal fees for the suit, Tapley said.

In a lawsuit filed in December, Bangor attorney Gary Growe, who acts as the trustee, stated that the town and its waterworks may have been paid preferentially over other creditors in the 90 days before Great Northern’s January 2003 bankruptcy filing.

The town and its water department are not the only ones that have been sued.

According to bankruptcy law, a trustee is permitted to go after money paid to creditors in a manner that could be viewed as preferential, such as receiving a payment out of the ordinary course of business. Hundreds of what are called “preference payment” recall letters have been sent out since the bankruptcy filing and many of the recipients have settled or have proved that there was nothing extraordinary about how they were paid.

More than 160 businesses, however, have been sued to return the alleged preference payments. Many of those cases have been settled or dismissed.

The trustee has two years from the date of the bankruptcy filing to seek the return of preferential payments. The clock runs out in January.

Also sued were Dead River Co., for more than $120,000, and Fastco Fabrication Inc. of Lincoln, for almost $92,000. A disposition of those lawsuits was not immediately available Wednesday.

Great Northern’s two mills in Millinocket and East Millinocket were sold in April 2003 to Brascan Corp. of Toronto and now operate under the name Katahdin Paper Co.

Attorneys representing both sides could not be reached Wednesday.