Disney found a way to buy Character.AI without buying its lawsuits

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This week, Character.AI declared bankruptcy. While some saw the fall of a chatbot platform as a harbinger for the industry, court filings indicate that the decision was actually a key part of a deal that has let Disney hire most of Character.AI’s staff—including its now former CEO Karandeep Anand—potentially acquire most of Character.AI’s technology, and avoid the beleaguered startup’s many legal liabilities and obligations.

本周，Character.AI 宣布破产。虽然一些人将该聊天机器人平台的倒闭视为行业衰退的预兆，但法庭文件显示，这一决定实际上是一项交易的关键部分。该交易使迪士尼得以聘用 Character.AI 的大部分员工（包括其现已离职的首席执行官 Karandeep Anand），并可能获取 Character.AI 的大部分技术，同时规避这家陷入困境的初创公司所面临的诸多法律责任和义务。

In the past few years, Character.AI has faced multiple private lawsuits over the safety of its chatbots, as well as investigations from regulators around the world. In a declaration filed as part of the bankruptcy, Character.AI’s newly appointed CEO explained that the goal of the bankruptcy was to reach a “consensual resolution” with personal injury claimants and a group of states investigating the company, while maximizing the value of the company’s assets for shareholders.

在过去几年中，Character.AI 因其聊天机器人的安全性问题面临多起私人诉讼，并受到全球监管机构的调查。在作为破产程序一部分提交的声明中，Character.AI 新任首席执行官解释称，破产的目标是与人身伤害索赔人及调查该公司的多个州达成“共识性解决方案”，同时为股东实现公司资产价值的最大化。

The Disney deal seems to be structured so that whatever is left of Character.AI will retain responsibility for those legal battles, some of which are still ongoing. The move appears to be a new twist on what some have dubbed a “reverse acquihire,” a process in which a buyer carefully orchestrates a succession of deals with a target company, usually in an effort to hire key employees and obtain expansive license to use and build on the target company’s unique technology.

迪士尼的交易结构似乎旨在确保 Character.AI 剩余的部分仍需对这些法律纠纷负责，其中一些纠纷目前仍在进行中。此举似乎是对所谓“反向收购”（reverse acquihire）的一种新变体，即买方精心策划与目标公司的一系列交易，通常是为了聘用关键员工并获得广泛的许可，以使用和开发目标公司的独特技术。

Stripped of its employees, the target becomes a husk of itself. Companies often take the position that reverse acquihires are not actual mergers, and that they do not have to notify federal antitrust regulators about those deals as they would otherwise be required to by law. These arrangements have become more commonplace in the AI industry in recent years, drawing the ire of Congress.

在失去员工后，目标公司便只剩下一个空壳。企业通常主张反向收购并非实际意义上的合并，因此无需像法律规定的那样向联邦反垄断监管机构通报这些交易。近年来，此类安排在人工智能行业变得愈发普遍，引发了国会的愤怒。

In the case of Character.AI, a motion filed by Character.AI’s legal counsel says that Disney required that the deal be “fully consummated” through bankruptcy proceedings because of the startup’s “diminishing cash reserve and significant litigation and regulatory risks.” A spokesperson for Character.AI referred WIRED to Disney for comment on whether the deal was contingent on the startup declaring bankruptcy. Disney declined to comment on this story.

就 Character.AI 的案例而言，其法律顾问提交的一份动议称，由于该初创公司“现金储备减少以及面临重大的诉讼和监管风险”，迪士尼要求通过破产程序“完全完成”该交易。Character.AI 的发言人建议《连线》（WIRED）向迪士尼询问该交易是否以初创公司宣布破产为前提。迪士尼拒绝就此报道发表评论。

According to court filings, the deal involves “two interrelated and integrated” transactions—one before Character.AI declared bankruptcy, and one after. As part of the first transaction, which occurred in September, Disney paid the startup $5.5 million, along with a refundable “good faith deposit” of $2 million. Disney also hired the “majority” of Character.AI’s employees, including the CEO, and agreed that it would let some of the now-Disney employees help keep Character.AI operational for five months.

根据法庭文件，该交易涉及“两项相互关联且整合”的交易——一项在 Character.AI 宣布破产前，另一项在破产后。作为 9 月份进行的第一项交易的一部分，迪士尼向该初创公司支付了 550 万美元，以及 200 万美元可退还的“诚意金”。迪士尼还聘用了包括首席执行官在内的 Character.AI 的“大多数”员工，并同意让部分现已成为迪士尼员工的人员协助维持 Character.AI 的运营五个月。

Character.AI filed a petition for chapter 11 bankruptcy on October 12. Through the bankruptcy proceedings, court filings show that Disney hopes to secure a perpetual, worldwide, nonexclusive license for a huge range of Character.AI’s code, documentation, frameworks, tools, and “other artifacts,” including those produced for its trust and safety moderation stack, training infrastructure, and age-prediction technology.

Character.AI 于 10 月 12 日提交了第 11 章破产保护申请。法庭文件显示，通过破产程序，迪士尼希望获得 Character.AI 大量代码、文档、框架、工具及“其他产物”的永久、全球性、非独家许可，其中包括为其信任与安全审核堆栈、训练基础设施和年龄预测技术所生产的内容。

The list of IP included in the filings does not include users’ data (which can get additional protections in bankruptcy proceedings) or Character.AI’s website. That license will be auctioned off in the coming months. If Disney is chosen as the winning bidder by Character.AI and a committee of unsecured creditors—and courts approve the deal—it has agreed to pay Character.AI an additional $12.5 million as a closing payment.

文件中包含的知识产权清单不包括用户数据（在破产程序中可获得额外保护）或 Character.AI 的网站。该许可将在未来几个月内进行拍卖。如果迪士尼被 Character.AI 和无担保债权人委员会选为中标者，且法院批准该交易，迪士尼已同意向 Character.AI 额外支付 1250 万美元作为成交款。

If Disney is not selected, the company will be refunded the $2 million deposit and receive a breakup fee. In order to “preserve a competitive process,” Disney also agreed to permit the winning bidder to interview and potentially extend offers to up to 80 percent of “certain newly hired employees” that Disney already hired from Character.AI. Disney has the right to select which employees.

如果迪士尼未被选中，该公司将获得 200 万美元押金的退款并收到一笔分手费。为了“维护竞争过程”，迪士尼还同意允许中标者面试并可能向迪士尼已从 Character.AI 聘用的“某些新员工”中的至多 80% 发出录用通知。迪士尼有权选择具体哪些员工。

However, experts worry that bouncing Character.AI employees from one company to another in the span of months is unrealistic, and that the deal Disney and Character.AI have struck cannot be easily unwound. In addition, Disney prepared a draft of a court order referred to as the “363 Free and Clear Order” in the filings, a version of which would be approved by the court at or before closing, that would clarify that this process should not be viewed as a merger of the two companies and that Character.AI would remain responsible for “any liability or other obligation” it might have, including any legal claims against it.

然而，专家担心在几个月内让 Character.AI 的员工在不同公司间跳槽是不现实的，且迪士尼与 Character.AI 达成的交易无法轻易撤销。此外，迪士尼在文件中准备了一份被称为“363 自由与清算令”（363 Free and Clear Order）的法院命令草案，该草案的版本将在成交时或成交前由法院批准，旨在明确此过程不应被视为两家公司的合并，且 Character.AI 将继续对其可能承担的“任何责任或其他义务”负责，包括针对它的任何法律索赔。

A spokesperson for Character.AI said they were unable to speculate on the outcome of the bankruptcy proceedings and referred WIRED to the docket. “There’s decades of corporate law that developed to deal with the problem of a buyer who always wants to take on all the assets and never wants to take on any of the liability,” says John Newman, a law professor at the University of Memphis School of Law and a former deputy director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Competition.

Character.AI 的发言人表示，他们无法推测破产程序的结果，并建议《连线》查阅法庭记录。孟菲斯大学法学院法学教授、联邦贸易委员会竞争局前副局长约翰·纽曼（John Newman）表示：“几十年来，公司法的发展旨在解决买方总是想要获取所有资产却从不想承担任何责任的问题。”

But the Disney-Character.AI deal is extremely unusual and structured in a way, he says, that “all those corporate law safeguards really weren’t built to guard against.” Not its first rodeo This isn’t even Character.AI’s first reverse acquihire. In August 2024, Google reportedly paid the startup $2.7 billion to license its technology.

但他表示，迪士尼与 Character.AI 的交易极其罕见，其结构方式使得“所有那些公司法保障措施实际上都无法防范”。这并非 Character.AI 的首次尝试。这甚至不是 Character.AI 的第一次反向收购。据报道，2024 年 8 月，谷歌向该初创公司支付了 27 亿美元以获取其技术许可。

A spokesperson tells WIRED that that license was for the existing AI technology at the time of the deal, and that Google also hired Character.AI’s founders and other members of its ML pre-training research team, but that the “vast majority” of the startup’s employees remained at the company. In the following years, Google was named alongside Character.AI as a defendant in multiple lawsuits, including one that alleged a 14-year-old b

一位发言人告诉《连线》，该许可仅针对交易时现有的 AI 技术，谷歌还聘用了 Character.AI 的创始人及其机器学习预训练研究团队的其他成员，但该初创公司的“绝大多数”员工仍留在公司。在随后的几年里，谷歌与 Character.AI 一起被列为多起诉讼的被告，其中包括一起指控一名 14 岁少年……