• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, June 10, 2016

Gawker Media said Friday that it has filed for bankruptcy protection and plans to sell off its titles.

Gawker also said it has already agreed to sell seven properties to Ziff Davis, which reportedly has made a $100 million offer. But it's not clear whether Ziff Davis will acquire the titles, given that it could be outbid at a bankruptcy auction.

The bankruptcy filing comes three months after celebrity Terry Bolea, better known as Hulk Hogan, won a $140 million judgment against Gawker for violating his privacy by publishing excerpts of a sex tape. Gawker plans to appeal that ruling.

Several weeks ago, it emerged that Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel funded Hogan's lawsuit as part of a long-running vendetta against Gawker.

"Gawker Media Group is putting its properties up for sale after a coordinated barrage of lawsuits intended to put the company out of business and deter its writers from offering critical coverage," the company said in a statement issued Friday afternoon.

Gawker filed for Chapter 11 reorganization on Friday after Pamela Campbell, the judge who presided over Hogan's lawsuit against Gawker, denied the company's request to stay the judgment pending appeal. The bankruptcy petition likely will enable Gawker to obtain a stay of Hogan's award.

Gawker said in a statement issued Friday that it plans to continue publishing, and that it's "confident" it will prevail against Hogan on appeal. 

An appellate court in Florida previously reversed several of Campbell's rulings against Gawker. In 2014, Campbell ordered Gawker to remove the sex tape excerpt and a 1,400-word write-up by the site's former editor, A.J. Daulerio. Gawker took down the grainy clip, but refused to remove Daulerio's commentary. The media company also appealed and, in May of that year, won a temporary stay of Campbell's order.

“It was within Gawker Media's editorial discretion to publish the written report and video excerpts,” a three-judge appellate panel wrote in 2014.

The judges added that Gawker's post dealt with a matter of public interest -- and that Hogan had called TMZ Live to discuss the sex tape, appeared on the Howard Stern Show to say that he had an affair with the wife of a friend, and “was certainly not shy” about disclosing details of a separate affair in his autobiography.