When California solar company went bankrupt after taking a $535M loan guarantee from the U.S Department of Energy taxpayers were shocked and outraged. And now they are asking a judge to allow them to pay bonuses to their remaining employees.
Solyndra executives had just given themselves generous bonuses just six months before they had to hire a bankruptcy attorney to get them out of their financial mess. In August, after they declared bankruptcy they laid of thousands of employees without severance pay.
And now they have asked the federal bankruptcy judge to allow them to pay their remaining employees an annual bonus. Solyndra asserts that it would boost the morale of the remaining employees as the company goes through bankruptcy proceedings. The bonuses would be for workers lower on the totem pole such as engineers and facilities workers.
Solyndra filed for bankruptcy on September 1st despite the $535 million government loan and $1 billion in private investments. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in November that the taxpayer would probably never recover any of the $535 million loan. They recently had to face a Congressional Committee to discuss why the company failed.
Not all companies survive because their debt becomes overbearing, but a bankruptcy attorney can offer the ailing business some solutions. There are different filings to that allow a business to reduce or eliminate their debt.
In some instances, a bankruptcy attorney can help save a business so that can once again become profitable.
