Bankruptcy judge rejects The Onion's bid to buy Alex Jones' Infowars
A bankruptcy judge on Tuesday rejected a bid by The Onion’s parent company to buy Alex Jones’ far-right media empire, including the website Infowars, ruling that the auction process was unfair.
A bankruptcy judge on Tuesday rejected a bid by The Onion’s parent company to buy Alex Jones’ far-right media empire, including the website Infowars, ruling that the auction process was unfair.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez said after a two-day hearing that The Onion’s parent company, Global Tetrahedron, had not submitted the best bid and was wrongly named the winner of an auction last month by a court-appointed trustee.
“I don’t think it’s enough money,” Lopez said in a late-night ruling from the bench in a Houston court. “I’m going to not approve the sale.”
It was not immediately clear whether there would be a new auction in which The Onion could bid again for Jones’ assets. Lopez said he would leave the decision about what to do next in the hands of the trustee, Christopher Murray, who had overseen the auction.
The judge said Murray had acted in good faith in running the auction in which The Onion’s parent company initially appeared to prevail, but he said the trustee did not run a transparent process and should have given a rival bidder associated with Jones another chance to improve its bid.
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