Nice, I hope this helps Paizo out!

This is great news! Hopefully this means that Paizo can hire back the employees they had to let go recently.

I was worried for a while that this might eventually lead to a dire fate for Paizo. We really need them to stick around so there is some sort of competitive alternative to D&D so that WotC doesn't get too complacent.

The fact that this could legally happen in the first place is just mind boggling to me. If you had the products in consignment, surely that means you don’t actually own them.

The fact that this could legally happen in the first place is just mind boggling to me. If you had the products in consignment, surely that means you don’t actually own them.

For the non US folks, much commerce in the US is covered by the Uniform Commercial Code. "The Uniform Commercial Code is a set of uniformly adopted state laws that regulate U.S. commercial transactions, including financial contracts and other interstate business." Easy to forget that by design the US is really more a collection of 50 smaller countries that gave up some rights in order to join the larger Federal Country. The UCC means that all 50 states mostly have the same rules for commerce.

From earlier posting on the Diamond bankruptcy, apparently the UCC requires that a special form be sent to, in this case Diamond, for each lot consigned that specifies the lot still belongs to the original owner, in this case Paizo. Just guessing but likely this form came into being after a years earlier similar situation was resolved in court. Needing a form for each lot may seem stupid but bureaucrats love extra paper.

Just glad this is resolved and everyone can move on. Hopefully several companies will now have brighter futures.

Posted on the Paizo message boards earlier today by CEO Jim Butler:

As this is still active litigation, I can't comment too much on it, but here's the high-level:

1.) The agreement removes the lien/claims by JP Morgan Chase and the Diamond trustee over our products.

2.) Parties have until August 26th to file an objection.

3.) Once the lien is gone, we can move forward with recovery of our products.

4.) Sparkle Pop (NECA/Wizkids) bought the warehouse early on in the bankruptcy and they hold our stock in their Olive Branch, MS warehouse. We can't do anything with the product as long as the lien remains in place.

As we haven't had access to the warehouse for 18 months, we'd like to do an audit of what's actually left and determine what products we want to send back to the Paizo warehouse, send to our new book trade distributor, or destroy.

So, this isn't necessarily the end of the process but hopefully it's the beginning of the end and certainly the end of the beginning.

The fact that this could legally happen in the first place is just mind boggling to me. If you had the products in consignment, surely that means you don’t actually own them.

It's the bit about Diamond remaining as Paizo's exclusive distributor even in bankruptcy that I find strange.

I'm used to contracts - albeit financial services contracts, not retail ones - including a bankruptcy clause that basically terminates the agreement if one party goes into bankruptcy (or similar). Maybe that's not a thing in the USA?