Is a mailbox an office? Not according to the US’ bankruptcy argument against Sorrento Therapeutics

A US De­part­ment of Jus­tice bank­rupt­cy watch­dog said Fri­day that Sor­ren­to Ther­a­peu­tics “mis­rep­re­sent­ed” its place of busi­ness in fil­ing for bank­rupt­cy in Texas last year, re­quest­ing the court ei­ther change venue or dis­miss the case.

Sor­ren­to is based in San Diego. But when it filed its Chap­ter 11 pa­per­work last Feb­ru­ary, it did so from a mail­box in Hous­ton, the gov­ern­ment said.

US trustee for the South­ern Dis­trict of Texas Kevin Ep­stein said the com­pa­ny had no pre­vi­ous ties to the area oth­er than a mail­box rent­ed by a sub­sidiary, called Scin­til­la, at a UPS store the day be­fore the fil­ing. Ep­stein ac­cused the sub­sidiary of at­tempt­ing to pass the mail­box off as its pri­ma­ry place of busi­ness in an “abu­sive venue-man­u­fac­tur­ing scheme.”

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