It's technically the law. Bankruptcy procedures are geared to enable the return of the maximum amount of proceeds for the creditors.
Sealed bid kind of torpedos that I suppose, but considering the shit stain on history that Infowars is, I feel like an exception should have been made here.
Each party is incentivised to make the highest offer they're willing to pay from the beginning, as opposed to negotiating the best price they can get.
Additionally, the families forgiving a significant amount of money as part of the bid should factor in, since the responsibility of the estate is to get the best deal, not the most cash.
Apparently Jones chose a sham for his trustee who decided how to run the auction
Edit: "sham" as in how Jones saw it. After receiving only 2 bids, Murray—the trustee—decided to only solicit best and final offers instead of following the original open auction procedure; the court didn't expect changing those rules, but the change was completely within the trustee's power. Though both bidders had no objections to the changed rules, the lost bidder and Jones did after the results came out and sued, and the court felt like Murray should've done something else (while clarifying that they felt Murray acted in good faith).
Sealed bids encourage last and best offers, and prevent the deepest pockets from submitting a "highest plus one" bid that minimizes the proceeds from the sale.
The article says "the potential for an additional $1 million was not worth the risk of increased costs to the estate". I don't think that's the case here.