 | | Featured Premium Content | | | | | ABI Conference Materials: PPP: Post-Purdue Pharma
Most lawyers are very familiar with what SCOTUS decided in the Harrington v. Purdue Pharma L.P. case. A panel at the 2025 Alexander L. Paskay Memorial Bankruptcy Seminar focused on the issues on which SCOTUS did not decide and that are the subjects of new decisions all over the country. Access the materials here. | | |  | | Editor's Picks | | | | | Big Lots Lacks Cash to Pay Bankruptcy Bills, Angering Suppliers
Bankrupt retailer Big Lots Inc. doesn’t have enough money to pay suppliers for all the goods provided during the retailer’s failed effort to keep hundreds of stores from closing, Bloomberg News reported. The shortfall means suppliers who shipped tens of millions of dollars worth of furniture and other items are poised be among the main losers in the chain’s chapter 11 case. READ MORE | | Silicon Valley Bank's Former Parent Can Pursue $1.93 Billion FDIC Lawsuit
Silicon Valley Bank's former parent may pursue a lawsuit to recover $1.93 billion of deposits that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp seized following the bank's March 2023 collapse, a federal judge ruled, Reuters reported. In a decision on Thursday, U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman in San Jose, California said the former parent, now known as SVB Financial Trust, adequately alleged that the FDIC in its corporate capacity maintained control over the deposits, though the allegations were "vanishingly thin." READ MORE | | J&J Spars With Foes of $9 Billion Talc Cancer Plan as Trial Ends
Johnson & Johnson told a judge its $9 billion proposal to settle baby powder cancer claims in bankruptcy court is the only viable way to end more than 15 years of litigation, while opponents assailed the company’s efforts to line up support for its plan as deeply flawed, Bloomberg News reported. “Time is off the essence,” J&J’s lawyer, Alli Brown, said Friday in her closing argument to win approval of the plan that would resolve tens of thousands of lawsuits alleging that asbestos-tainted talc in its iconic product has sickened users. Women suffering from ovarian and other cancers are dying daily, Brown said. Conventional personal-injury mass litigation “has shown us it’s not a way to get a timely resolution.” A lawyer for opponents of the plan said cancer victims “weren’t treated fairly and impartially” in a pre-bankruptcy vote held last year to gauge support for J&J’s settlement offer. READ MORE
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March 3 | New York | | | | |  | | Daily Roundup | | | | | 15,000 Store Closures Expected In Retail As Private Equity Pulls Back
According to recent reports from Coresight, a leading advisory firm on retail and technology trends, retail closures are expected to spike to approximately 15,000 stores in 2025, Forbes reported. Research cited by Newsweek says that 2025 will see a 334% increase store closings, based on U.S. retailer announcements so far. The closings are driven by weak consumer demand, inflation, and investor expectations inside an increasingly unforgiving business environment. READ MORE | | Yellow Settles WARN Claims from Nonunion Employees for $12.3 Million
Yellow Corp. revealed at a January hearing that it had come to terms with nonunion employees regarding a failure to provide 60 days’ notice ahead of mass layoffs in 2023. Friday filings in a federal bankruptcy court in Delaware showed the settlement amounts, Freight Waves reported. The defunct less-than-truckload carrier has settled Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act claims from two separate plaintiff classes for a total of $12.3 million. READ MORE | | Florida Hospital in ‘Poor Condition’ After ‘Years of Neglect’ to Be Closed
Orlando Health plans to shut down a recently purchased Brevard County hospital, eliminating more than 900 jobs, because it said the facility is in poor condition and upgrading it is not cost effective, the Tampa Bay Times reported. The announcement is an unexpected move in Orlando Health’s expansion drive, with an uncertain but likely significant impact on the region’s hospital market, since it will take years to replace the facility. The hospital system said it plans to build a new hospital in Brevard and to offer the 940 employees now working at Rockledge Hospital positions at other Orlando Health facilities. The hospital and four outpatient centers will close April 22. READ MORE | | Reno City Center Bankruptcy Dismissed, $37.5 Million Second Payment Due
A judge dismissed the bankruptcy of the stalled Reno City Center project following an extended battle that pitted current ownership with the downtown property’s former project manager, the Reno Gazette Journal reported. Gryphon Private Wealth Management, which requested the dismissal under limited liability company Reno City Center Owner, just needed to make a $37.5 million payment by Friday to ensure that the project does not get foreclosed on by its lender. READ MORE | | ‘How Are We Going to Afford This?’ U.S. Companies Face Tariff Reality.
The New York Times has heard from nearly 100 companies that import from China about how the president’s tariffs were affecting them. They are a cross-section of striving enterprises stitched into the global economy: companies that make greeting cards, board games, outdoor footwear, hangers, digital picture frames, coffee equipment, toys, stained-glass windows and custom electronics. Several themes emerged. American businesses, not Chinese suppliers, were shouldering the cost of tariffs. Many companies said they would have to raise prices to offset the expense if they had not already. Some spoke of a feeling of business paralysis: They were afraid to make plans amid the unpredictable stream of new tariffs, fearing the risk of moving production out of China since no country seemed immune. READ MORE | | U.S. Spending Drops in Cold Weather, Inflation Gauge Offers Relief
The Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of underlying inflation offered some relief after a string of reports suggested price pressures are heating up, but a larger-than-expected pullback in spending may raise concerns about the resilience of the U.S. economy, Bloomberg News reported. The so-called core personal consumption expenditures price index, which excludes food and energy items, rose 0.3% from December. From a year ago, it increased 2.6%, matching the smallest annual increase since early 2021, Bureau of Economic Analysis data out Friday showed. Inflation-adjusted consumer spending fell 0.5%, marking the biggest monthly decline in almost four years amid extreme winter weather after a robust holiday season. The drop in outlays was driven by an outsize decline in motor vehicle purchases, though slowing services spending also slowed. READ MORE | | SEC‘s ‘Demolition’ of Crypto Enforcement Met With Cheers as Well as Jeers
The US Securities and Exchange Commission has kicked off the new year with a makeover, wiping clean its slate of crypto enforcement actions and turning what was once a hostile landscape for digital assets into a potential haven, Bloomberg News reported. In the last month alone, the securities watchdog has dismissed or paused at least eight cases against crypto companies, including those that targeted some of the sector’s most prominent faces. The running tally includes high-profile lawsuits against crypto exchanges Coinbase Global Inc and Binance Holdings Ltd. — who were sued within one day of each other in mid-2023 — as well as threats of legal action against Robinhood Markets Inc., Uniswap Labs and OpenSea. READ MORE | | | | |
