Nicola’s recently published founder, Trevor Milton, is fighting a subpoena from creditors of his bankrupt electric trucking company.
According to a recent filing, on April 1, the official committee of unsecured creditors in bankruptcy cases sent a subpoena to Milton’s attorney on April 1. Milton slayed Nicola to about $100 million before filing for bankruptcy in February, following an arbitration case in connection with his criminal conviction that he lost in 2023.
The committee says Milton has not yet paid and is trying to use a subpoena to determine the current state of his finances.
Before bankruptcy, Nicola sued Milton in federal court in Arizona, accusing him of cheating on him, delaying his assets and fraudulently transferring his assets to (Nicola) in order to steal (Nicola) (Nicola) from (Nicola) as the committee said.”
According to the filing, Milton has been fighting the subpoena for the past two months. The company’s lawyer told the judge that it determined that the documents its creditors are seeking would be subject to a protection order in an Arizona case.
The fight over the summons will come to mind during the scheduled hearing on June 9th.
The Creditors’ Committee and the attorneys representing Milton did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Most of Nicola’s assets have already been sold during the bankruptcy process. Lucid Motors purchased leases for Nicola’s Arizona plant and headquarters and hired about 300 employees. The auction company purchased the remaining hydrogen-powered truck fleet of Nicola.
This left the Arbitration Award as one of the biggest and most significant remaining assets in Nicola’s real estate.
Before filing for bankruptcy, Nicola was hit by a class action shareholder lawsuit in connection with misleading claims he made in the process of becoming a public company. Nicola settled lawsuits with the Securities and Exchange Commission over these claims, but shareholder lawsuits were still ongoing when the company fell into bankruptcy.
The inception of bankruptcy was to use Milton’s arbitration award to settle shareholder lawsuits. However, Milton “has not paid a few cents yet,” the Creditors’ Committee said in a filing. Along the way, Milton, who had been suing his four-year prison sentence, was given a surprising pardon by President Trump. Just a few weeks later, Nicola’s lawyer accused Milton of trying to derail the bankruptcy case.
Meanwhile, Milton has commissioned a documentary scheduled to premiere on June 10th. He promises to tell you “a true story about how the so-called “judicial system” almost destroyed an innocent man.”