A couple of points on the TUPE and slot issues raised by a number of posters.
TUPE only applies where there is a transfer or sale of a business as opposed to a sale of a company (which is why no consultation is required for the sale of bmi to IAG as its the parent company of bmi that is being sold).If consultation is being proposed it suggests that bmibaby might be sold as a business and not by selling the company bmibaby limited. Not totally sure why that would be, but could be because the aircraft were actually leased to british midland airways limited and so a sale of the company bmibaby ltd doesn't accomplish what the buyer actually needs. The only other reason for consultation would be if large scale redundancies were being planned, but that seems unlikely as either a sale will happen or the whole business will be closed by IAG or LH in the doomsday scenario below.
On the slots and potential close down scenarios, it is highly unlikely that LH could transfer the slots to themselves and then proceed to wind up bmi. The slot regs require that they are operated at least 80% of the time , so LH would have to find the means to fly these 50 odd slots in order to retain them, which means aircraft, crews and routes. Even if they could find the means, what makes you think they would lose any less than bmi operating the same slots? Selling them on to other airlines is not realistic except at the margins....50 is an awful lot of slots to sell quickly particularly when the buyer has to find a slot pair to exchange for the pair it is buying, and there are very few airlines out there looking to increase capacity in a hurry.
If close down is really an option being contemplated by LH then they would probably simply pull the plug by putting in a liquidator and walk away from the whole thing including the pension scheme. Financially that would be a lot better for them than the deal on the table, but reputationally it would be disastrous. Can't see them doing it. It's an attempt to get the EC to roll over quietly.