Adelphia bondholder group asks court to postpone plan confirmation hearing 30 days for evidence review

By Caroline Salls

Pittsburgh, Dec. 6 - Adelphia Communications Corp.'s bondholder group asked the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York to adjourn the company's plan of reorganization confirmation hearing for a minimum of 30 days, according to a Wednesday court filing.

The hearing is currently scheduled to begin on Thursday.

According to the emergency motion, starting the confirmation hearing on Thursday will deprive the bondholder group and other creditors of due process by taking away any opportunity to prepare for meaningful participation in the hearing.

"It is untenable that a case of this magnitude - in terms of billions of dollars of value as well as significant legal issues and over four years in the making - would culminate in a rush to judgment denying creditors and other parties in interest fundamental due process rights," the bondholder group said in the motion.

The bondholders said discovery is ongoing and will continue to be during the confirmation hearing, with hundreds of pages of briefs, testimony and other papers filed over the last three weeks.

The bondholders said much of the evidence was filed only two days ago and "it is humanly impossible to read and absorb all of the legal issues raised by the briefing, factual argument analysis set forth in the declarations and information obtained through the discovery process on such a compressed timetable.

"Moreover, contrary to what the plan proponents would have this court believe, there is no legitimate or credible need suddenly to expedite a case that has already been before the court for four and a-half years," the bondholder group said in the motion.

Adelphia, a Greenwood Village, Colo.-based cable operator, filed for bankruptcy on June 25, 2002. Its Chapter 11 case number is 02-41729.

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