If you’re a person interested in retail bankruptcy, you’ll want to learn about how unsecured creditors hope to extract money from the smoldering remains of RadioShack. If you’re someone who recently discovered that they’re stuck with a RadioShack gift card, you’ll want to learn about how you can file your own claim against this trust and maybe get a tiny bit of money back.

In RadioShack’s bankruptcy, other lenders objected to Standard General, now the owner of 1,500 former Shacks and the company’s intellectual property, using RadioShack’s debt as currency in the bankruptcy auction. They believed that the winning bid should be in cash, and that cash distributed fairly between all lenders. Standard General won, though, and now the other lenders have a different plan.

First, they would prefer to change the bankruptcy into a cheaper Chapter 7 proceeding now that most of the stores and merchandise have been disposed of. The liquidation trust that would form is where any money that is due to what used to be RadioShack will go, including insurance payouts from lawsuits over the company’s mismanagement. It’s not the hundreds of millions of dollars that the creditors are owed, but those payouts could be up to $90 million.

If you do happen to have a RadioShack gift card sitting around, that makes you a tiny, tiny creditor in this bankruptcy proceeding. Congratulations? You only have a few weeks left to file your claim, which may result in a tiny, tiny payout. Still, you can file your claim here if you’re curious about the process.

RadioShack Files Liquidation Plan [Wall Street Journal]

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