NEWARK, N.J. – Although the old Bed Bath & Beyond is out of business, the bankruptcy case rolls on.
This week, the bankruptcy judge stipulated that senior executives and board members may have their legal defense costs covered under a liability policy provided by Zurich American Insurance.
The Bed Bath & Beyond legal defense costs cover the period from September 2021 to September 2022 and is capped at an aggregate $10 limit, according to Insurance Journal.
The insured include:
Harriett Edelman, a consumer goods and financial services executive who was appointed as independent chair of BBB’s board of directors in June 2020.
Sue Gove, a retail consultant who joined the BBB board in 2019. Gove was elevated to CEO in October 2020 a few months after former CEO Mark Tritton was pushed out.
Andrea Weiss, a long-time retail executive joined board, as chair of the Business Transformation and Strategy Review Committee in May 2019 after then-CEO Steve Temares exited Bed Bath & Beyond under pressure from an activist investor group.
Joshua Schechter, a business executive who joined the BBB board in May 2019 and who was appointed Chair of the Audit Committee in June 2020.
The Estate of Gustavo Arnal. Arnal was CFO at Bed Bath & Beyond and died in September 2022 after falling from his 18th story apartment in New York. Arnal’s death was ruled a suicide.
“Zurich agreed to advance the defense costs under the D&O policy, subject to its reservation of rights and upon entry of an order of the bankruptcy court permitting such advancements,” Insurance Journal reported.
Bed Bath & Beyond filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in April 2023. Three months later, its intellectual property was acquired by Overstock.com Inc. The e-commerce company relaunched the “new” Bed Bath & Beyond as an online-only business on Aug. 1, 2023 and subsequently changed its corporate identity to Beyond Inc.