Before Energy Future Holdings Corp. can start fighting junior creditors opposed to the company’s more-than $40 billion bankruptcy plan, the judge overseeing the case must pick the battleground, Bloomberg News reported today. Minutes after Energy Future’s chapter 11 filing hit the docket April 29, the junior creditors asked Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Sontchi to move the case from Wilmington, Delaware, one of the busiest bankruptcy venues in the U.S., to a federal courthouse in Dallas, just blocks from company headquarters. A trustee for the lower-ranking creditors wants Judge Sontchi to consider the request at a hearing today, saying that operations would face fewer disruptions if the biggest bankruptcy in the energy industry were handled closer to home. The Dallas-based electricity provider, taken private seven years ago by Henry Kravis and David Bonderman in a record leveraged buyout, filed for bankruptcy this week after negotiating a restructuring deal among creditors, owners and management.
