At Tuesday morning’s omnibus hearing in Borders's Chapter 11 proceedings, Judge Martin Glenn of federal bankruptcy court in the Southern District of New York granted the chain's motion to extend the time it can assume or reject leases for another 90 days, extending the timeframe until mid-September. The approval was considered crucial to Borders's chances to successfully reorganize. As the retailer noted on Friday in response to some landlords’ objections to the extensions, given the milestones in the DIP facility “if the Debtors failed to make this Motion now, they would forfeit their opportunity to reorganize because the chain would have no alternative except liquidation.” In granting the motion, Judge Glenn made sure that all landlords have been paid a timely fashion, including stub rent, and said, “I want to make clear I don’t appreciate measures in a DIP that constrains the equitable discretion of the bankruptcy court.”

Although the retailer got most of what it asked for, including approval of the DIP order and credit agreement, pending a final review when a revised motion is submitted Wednesday, the hearing wasn’t without bumps. In response to questions from the judge, attorneys for Borders said that the DIP provides $30 million to $60 million in new money, depending how it’s counted. Creditors’ committee counsel Bruce Buechler of Lowenstein Sandler referred to the $60 million not as new money but “additionally available.”

Quoting Charles Caleb Colton’s aphorism that “imitation is the highest form of flattery,” Judge Glenn took Borders’s counsel to task for copying a motion regarding assurance procedures with utilities almost verbatim. The judge not only told Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman LLP that they can’t bill for any time at all on the motion, he also expressed displeasure that Borders waited for the 28th day to file the motion, when it is supposed to make a payment within 20 days or face consequences on the 30th day. The judge approved an interim order pending the next hearing, which will be held on April 7.