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Agreement reached between Arrow Trucking executive, estate

It’s been nearly two years since Tulsa-based Arrow Trucking Company’s abrupt closure left drivers stranded all over the country without fuel or money to get home.

Since that time, Arrow Trucking’s bankruptcy trustee Patrick J. Malloy III has been tasked with finding assets for the estate to pay those affected by the collapse.

Malloy told Land Line on Thursday that a proposed settlement of $450,000 has been reached with former Arrow Trucking Chairman Carol Pielsticker Bump, which may lead to a second payout for drivers.

“Eventually, we will be able to effect a second distribution to drivers, and this settlement gets us closer to that distribution,” he said.

According to court documents, once the agreement is approved by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Dana L. Rasure, Bump has agreed to pay the estate $320,000 in cash within 10 days.

In January 2011, Malloy filed a lawsuit in against two former officers of Arrow Trucking, Bump and her son, Doug Pielsticker, former Arrow Trucking CEO, in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma.

The lawsuit alleged that Bump and Pielsticker received fraudulent transfers of at least $12.8 million of Arrow Trucking’s assets for their personal use over a four-year period before the company’s Chapter 7 bankruptcy petition in January 2010.

According to the lawsuit, Bump received $4.4 million in fraudulent transfers “disguised as salary,” and Pielsticker received $8.4 million in fraudulent transfers from Arrow Trucking.

“In their capacity as Director and CEO, Carol and Doug owed fiduciary duties to Arrow (Trucking),” the suit states. “Carol and Doug, in the exercise of reasonable care and business judgment should have known that the transfers specified herein constituted either constructive fraud or were effected with the actual intent to defraud and taken steps to prevent such transfers, and that such transfers constituted the dissipation of Arrow’s assets to the detriment and harm of Arrow (Trucking) and its creditors.”

Malloy said a second payout to drivers cannot be made until litigation is settled between the estate and Transportation Alliance Bank of Ogden, UT, which he said is still “asserting an equitable lien against the assets in my possession.”

The trustee has also filed a lawsuit against Transportation Alliance Bank seeking return of money that was transferred from Arrow Trucking to Transportation Alliance in the 90 days before the flatbed carrier’s collapse.

“In essence (Transportation Alliance Bank) asserting that their interests are prior to the estate’s interests,” Malloy said. “We dispute the assertion of that lien, but until it has been resolved, we cannot make a second distribution.”

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