A recent Law 360 story by Rick Archer, “US Trustee Faults Fee Info in Sears’ Request for IP Law Firm,” reports that the U.S. Trustee’s Office has asked a New York bankruptcy court to reject Sears Holding Corp.'s request to retain boutique law firm McAndrew Held & Malloy Ltd. to handle intellectual property matters unless it gets more information on what the firm will be paid.  In an objection, U.S. Trustee William Harrington said that, among other inadequacies, Sears’ request states McAndrews would receive a range of flat fees for a list of IP-related services but fails to assign specific payments to specific services.  “Accordingly, without more specific disclosure regarding the flat fee and the flat fee services, it is impossible to determine if the retention of McAndrews is reasonable,” he said.

Once one of the nation's largest retailers, Illinois-based Sears entered bankruptcy in October to reshape its physical footprint and reduce a debt load of more than $11 billion created by years of consecutive net revenue losses, store closings and unsuccessful efforts to adapt to a changing retail world.  After closing 142 of the 700 Sears and Kmart stores still in business, the company said it hopes to sell about 400 earnings-positive stores along with other potentially viable sites and assets including intellectual property while under Chapter 11 protection.

Two weeks ago, Sears applied to retain McAndrews, a Chicago-based IP firm, to handle trademark, copyright, patent and domain name issues.  The application said McAndrews has been Sears’ IP counsel for more than six years.  “By virtue of such prior engagement, McAndrews is intimately familiar with the facts and history of the company’s IP assets and coordinates the filing of IP applications in foreign jurisdictions.  The compensation proposed by McAndrews is at or below comparable rates in the IP market,” it said.

The application said Sears was proposing to pay a fixed fee of $43,750 a month, a flat fee of between $750 and $11,000 for a list of specific IP-related services, such as trademark and copyright registration, and an hourly rate for any other services.  The company also asked for permission to put $130,000 in retainers in trust to be paid to McAndrews in the event that it fails to pay any future invoices from the firm.

In his filing, Harrington said he was objecting on the grounds the application only gives the range of flat fees and does not give a specific fee for each of the specified services.  He also said the application “inexplicably” asks McAndrews be allowed to waive the requirement to file time records in six-minute increments for the fixed and flat fee services and that McAndrews had not shown why it should have a retainer in trust.

The case is In re: Sears Holding Corp, case number 7:18-bk-23538, in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.