So it looks like Appian have lawyered-up. They have filed a...

So it looks like Appian have lawyered-up. They have filed a motion to try and have their improved bid be accepted as the stalking horse bid over SLR. They have already pumped over $100m into Harte over the years so I guess their determination should be no surprise.

If I'm reading this right, they have now increased their offer to capture more creditors than the SLR offer and reduced their fees, amongst other things. They don't want to accept SLR shares in consideration of their debt. They never agreed to that and it contravened repayment provisions set out in the various agreements with Harte. They have made it clear that their revised bid attributes more value to Harte than the SLR offer

They're clearly not happy. They said they had "intensive negotiations" with Harte in early December which they thought were resolved. That is, until they were asked on the 3 December to submit their best offer by the 4 December and were then advised on the 6 December that Harte was going with the SLR bid. I think they are trying to imply that they weren't given sufficient time to prepare a considered bid, but now they have and they want the stalking horse bid.

They've sunk so much money into Harte already I think it will be difficult for them to walk away.

http://cfcanada.fticonsulting.com/harte/docs/Responding%20Motion%20Record%20-%20Appian%20-%2013-DEC-2021.pdf