First Meeting Of Creditors Held In Arrow Trucking Bankruptcy Case

By Emory Bryan, The News On 6

TULSA, OK -- The former employees of Arrow Trucking are getting their W-2's soon, but it will be a while longer before they get their last paychecks. That's just one of the developments Monday in the bankruptcy case.

On Monday, the first meeting of creditors in the Arrow Trucking bankruptcy was held.

It was a small meeting, about 25 people, and was really just a question and answer session about what's coming up. 

It's usually a key step when the executives testify about what the company has and what it owes. In this case, that didn't happen, in part because the books are in such a mess.

"We are daily working on determining who the creditors are, what the assets are and what they're worth," said Pat Malloy, bankruptcy trustee.

Pat Malloy is the court appointed trustee in the Arrow Trucking bankruptcy. It's his job to unravel the company's books to determine what's really there. Usually that work is done before the company goes into bankruptcy.

"Most of the time the company files bankruptcy and all that's spelled out in the documents they file in the case, who the creditors are, what's owed, what the assets are and what the company says they're worth. We don't have any of that," said Malloy.

Arrow Trucking abruptly went out of business in December 2009. So quickly that drivers were left stranded without gas money to get home. 

Many drivers abandoned their trucks and there's still an effort to find everything that belonged to Arrow and to its creditors. 

Malloy says it's early in the bankruptcy and it has not determined yet what's there to be divided up.

"We don't know yet. We don't even know who the creditors are and it will take a couple of weeks to get to the bottom of that," said Malloy.

It was the bankruptcy trustee who mailed out more than 3,000 W-2's this week and he's in the process of opening up the 401k so employees can get their money. 

Employees with unpaid wages are actually priority creditors and anyone needing to make a claim needs to go through the clerk's office in the federal bankruptcy court.

2/5/2010  Related Story: Arrow Trucking Financial Officer Denies Responsibility