As such, these payments would appear to be fraudulent transfers that are subject to avoidance and recoverable for the benefit of the estate and its creditors.”Īdditional information from the June 13th filing shows The Committee believes Atlanta Light Bulbs remains a valuable business that can still realized, “through a reorganization or sale of the business, provided that competent and experienced management is put in place to run the Debtor through a chapter 11 process until a reorganization or sale.” The Committee says it is observing business at Atlanta Light Bulbs, by writing to the court, “In addition, members of the Committee have both driven to and observed obvious business activities taking place at the Debtor’s main facility and have placed phone calls to the Debtor’s business to confirm willingness and ability to continue to take orders.”īut that is in contrast to the filing by Tandem Bank on June 10th which says Mendoza appeared before a United States Trustee for the bankruptcy case and, “averred that Debtor began winding down operations upon the filing of the Involuntary Petition and laid off all employees in mid-May 2022.” The Tandem Bank filing also reports it went to a satellite office for Atlanta Light Bulbs and, “the Office Premises had been vacated with the only remaining items being: 3 – 5 cubicle office systems 8 – 3 drawer cabinets which slide under the cubicle desks 1 – 4 door credenza and 1 – office chair.” Tandem Bank holds a first priority lien on on the contents in the office. Further, the more than $1.2 million that was transferred to her boyfriend was not, on information and belief, earned compensation or payments in satisfaction of any debt owed by the Debtor to Mr. Mendoza never received anywhere near $600,000 in compensation for her role at the company since she acquired her shares and began working at the business.
It is noteworthy that, on information and belief, Ms. Mendoza and another more than $1.2 million went to her boyfriend, Robert Taitz. Specifically, of the $1.8 million that was transferred to insiders during that time period, nearly $600,000 went to Ms. “ …improper transfers of funds from the Debtor to insiders in the past approximately one-and-one-half years totaling in excess of $1.8 million. The filing alleges owner Jessica Mendoza embezzled funds for personal reasons.
Simply put, the Debtor has not participated in this case and has blown deadlines to file critical documents.” Notwithstanding clear deadlines to do so, the Debtor has failed to respond to the involuntary petition, file a creditor matrix, schedules or statement of financial affairs, and to the best of the Committee’s knowledge, to respond to Rule 2004 discovery issued by Tandem Bank. The Committee’s latest court filing on June 13th repeats what was written in past filings, “The debtor, Atlanta Light Bulbs, Inc., has not shown up in this case in any way. As of June 15, Atlanta Light Bulbs has not created any filings or responded to orders from the bankruptcy court to provide financial information.
In filings to present their cases to a bankruptcy judge, both The Committee and Tandem Bank leveled a number of accusations at Atlanta Light Bulbs. Tandem believes it should receive any payment from the bankruptcy before The Committee. Tandem Bank has filed a separate bankruptcy claim against Atlanta Light Bulbs, claiming it gave the distributor a $600,000 loan in September of 2020, which due to interest and penalties, is now more than $650,000. The three organizations are now working together to try to collect past money owed, and are now filing their legal documents together as “The Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors of Atlanta Light Bulbs” or “The Committee”. Halco alone claims it is owed more than $300,000. Halco Lighting Technologies, Candela Corporation, and Norcross Electric Supply filed an involuntary bankruptcy petition against Atlanta Light Bulbs back in April of this year. As two sides line up to determine how they should receive payment allegedly owed to them by lighting distributor Atlanta Light Bulbs, more accusations and allegations have surfaced in their recent legal filings.
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