Agree with Lost and Ernie. I am confident that an Equity Committee will be requested and appointed.
What I am saying, though, is that even with an EC, it is counsel for the DIP that will have the lead.
EC counsel has a secondary role. It can, however, argue for a voice at the table as a Plan of Reorganization is being developed; it can request additional discovery if it feels that pursuit of relevent facts by the DIP is purposefully shoddy, or if it can prove a colorable claim or fraud, or IT, or some other "smoking gun"; and thus it can protract a litigation if a Global Settlement Agreement is foisted upon the proceedings which it feels is not in the interests of equity and thus add leverage if things come down to a choice between settlement and trial.
The real winners of a BK where there are millions or billions at stake are, of course, the lawyers, whose hourly billing can seriously eat into value of assets of an estate or BK company.
But my point was that a judge can only react to, and rule on, that which is presented to him/her, which also has to meet a certain level of rule of law for being appropriate for entry as evidence or a motion to rule. Expect counsel for the DIP to spin facts and evidence every which way in order to block an EC from persuing claims -- including lowball devaluation of assets (watch Blackstone), and attempts to disband the EC or its counsel.
Don't expect legal representation for the institutional investors to be equity-friendly, either. They will throw equity under the bus if they can get common shares cancelled as debt and position themselves above equity in a POR's waterfall.
Dion
"Time, and patience."
-- General Kutuzov, Tolstoy's "War and Peace".
