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December 12, 2005
id='1'>Asbestos Jury Award Might Be Record
A Ramsey County, Minn., jury awarded a $52.5 million verdict this
week to a Roseville construction firm that sued its insurance company
for failing to defend it against hundreds of injury and wrongful death
claims tied to asbestos exposure, the Pioneer Press reported Saturday.
Court officials said that the verdict returned Wednesday in favor of API
Inc. could be the largest in Ramsey County history.
Attorneys for defendant OneBeacon America Insurance Co., based in
Boston, did not comment Friday. The eight-member jury awarded $27.5
million for breach of contract, $10 million for operating in bad faith
and $15 million for breach of duty.
href='http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/state/minnesota/13374109.htm'>Read
more
id='2'>Delphi Said to Mull New UAW Proposal
The CEO of Delphi
Corp. is putting together a new contract proposal to present to the
United Auto Workers union, Reuters reported Saturday. The bankrupt auto
parts maker and the union have had no formal negotiations since Delphi
submitted a modified wage and benefit cutting plan to the UAW in
mid-November. Delphi's Chairman and CEO Robert 'Steve' Miller is also
willing to change a proposed compensation plan that would set aside $519
million in cash bonuses, severance packages and future stock for about
600 executives and other key employees, according to the weekend edition
href='http://money.cnn.com/2005/12/11/news/fortune500/delphi_uaw.reut/index.htm'>Read
more.
id='3'>Entergy Denied Katrina Aid by U.S.
The Bush
administration has denied requests from Entergy Corp. for $350 million
in federal aid to help rebuild the company's electric generating
facilities in storm-ravaged New Orleans, according to documents obtained
by Reuters Friday. Hubbard conveyed the message in a Nov. 18 letter to
Entergy
Corp. Executive Vice President Curt Hebert, who is a former chairman of
the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The letter was part of a
bitter exchange between the White House and Entergy last month. Entergy
has warned of more than $1 billion in damages, and its New Orleans unit
was forced into bankruptcy.
href='http://money.cnn.com/2005/12/09/news/fortune500/hurricane_energy.reut/index.htm'>Read
more.
id='4'>Reliance Group Effective Date Set
A notice was filed
in the U. S. bankruptcy court setting the effective date of the First
Amended Plan of Reorganization of Reliance Group Holdings, Inc. as Dec,
1, 2005, BankruptcyData.com reported today. The court confirmed the
company's reorganization plan on Nov. 10. The plan calls for a
liquidation of the company, which will be principally implemented
through a liquidating trust. On the effective date of the plan, all
assets of the estate of the company were transferred into a liquidating
trust and become trust property. James A. Goodman was appointed trustee
of the liquidating trust.
id='5'>Bankruptcy Law Backfires on Credit Card Issuers
Credit card issuers
and other lenders spent a small fortune to get bankruptcy reform
legislation passed. Now the new law is costing them even more, MSN Money
reported Saturday. An unprecedented spike in filings before reform took
effect in fall 2005 is chewing into lenders' bottom lines, and the
subsequent lull is showing signs of being short-lived. Bankruptcy
attorneys say their caseloads are starting to pick up, and credit
counseling agencies -- which provide now-mandatory sessions for
consumers who want to file -- say they're seeing significantly more
people than they initially predicted. All this is raising questions
about whether lenders will profit as much from the new bill as they
hoped.
href='http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/Banking/bankruptcyguide/P135860.asp'>Read
more.
id='6'>Federal Officials Want Trustee for Refco
The federal
government wants to appoint a trustee to oversee Refco Inc., which filed
for bankruptcy protection in October but has so far been relying on its
own executives to help the brokerage recover from corporate scandal, the
Wall Street Journal reported Saturday. The U.S. Trustee's Office filed a
motion in federal bankruptcy court Friday evening seeking permission to
appoint an independent fiduciary to investigate past wrongdoing at
Refco, inspect its books and help clarify the key issue of whether
certain clients should be treated as customers or creditors in the
firm's ongoing bankruptcy proceeding. In a filing accompanying the U.S.
Trustee's motion, signed by Refco attorney J. Gregory Milmoe, Refco
agreed that the appointment of an independent watchdog is 'in the
interests of creditors, equity security holders, and other interests of
the estate.'
href='http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113415666350418635-email.html'>Read
more.
id='7'>Delta Interim Agreement Announced
Delta Air Lines
announced late Sunday night that the company has reacheda tentative
interim agreement with the Air Line Pilots Association, its pilots'
union, BankruptcyData.com reported today. The agreement provides for,
among other things, a 14 percent hourly wage reduction plus supplemental
reductions equal to an additional 1 percent cut. The court will consider
approving the tentative agreement on Dec, 13, and the union is scheduled
to vote on the interim agreement on Dec. 28 Delta's CFO, Edward H.
Bastian, commented.
id='8'>Newly Bankrupt Raking in Piles of Credit Offers
As one of more than
two million Americans who rushed to a courthouse this year to file for
bankruptcy before a tough new law took effect, Laura Fogle is glad for
her chance at a fresh start. A nurse and single mother of two, she
blames her use of credit cards after cancer surgery for falling into
deep debt, the New York Times reported yesterday. Ms. Fogle is broke,
and may not seem to be the kind of person to whom banks would want to
offer credit cards. But she said she had no sooner filed for bankruptcy,
and sworn off plastic, than she was hit with a flurry of solicitations
from major banks.
href='http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/national/11credit.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1134395561-ZJvMnkm9gbr3cN3bQM+Sug'>Read
more.
id='9'>Bankruptcy Filings Fall Off after Deadline
A month after
debtors fearful of a tougher new bankruptcy law flocked to court to
declare insolvency under the old rules, the number of petitions filed in
Wisconsin plunged by more than 11,000 in November, the Milwaukee
Journal-Sentinel reported Saturday. A record 11,249 petitions were filed
in October, almost all of them before Oct. 17, when new regulations took
effect that require all filers to get counseling and some to go through
means testing. In November, a mere 232 bankruptcy petitions were filed
in the state. Lawyers and bankruptcy experts weren't surprised at the
falloff, and said it actually is giving court trustees - attorneys
appointed to review the financial situation of those who declare
bankruptcy—a chance to digest the mountain of petitions that piled up in
October.
href='http://www.jsonline.com/bym/news/dec05/376886.asp'>Read
more.
id='10'>No Credit Counseling Bars 'Sole Proprietor' from Bankruptcy
Court
An individual who
operates a business as a sole proprietorship is not denied legal 'equal
protection' merely because a new bankruptcy law requires credit
counseling for him, but not for corporations or limited liability
companies, a Virginia bankruptcy judge has ruled, FindLaw reported on
Monday. The decision underscores the importance of a person's form of
business in relation to the restrictive credit counseling provisions of
BAPCPA. In this case, Timothy C. Watson, facing imminent eviction from
his leased business premises in Norfolk, Va., filed a chapter 11
petition Oct. 20 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District
of Virginia as an individual rather than in the name of his business,
Architectural Stone, and requested temporary exemption from credit
counseling because he allegedly faced 'exigent circumstances' within the
meaning of the new bankruptcy law. Judge Stephen C. St. John found that
Watson's failure to make any attempt to obtain credit counseling was
fatal to his petition.
href='http://news.findlaw.com/andrews/bf/bnk/20051121/20051121watson.html'>Read
more.
International
id='11'>Stelco Creditors Approve Plan to Exit Bankruptcy
Stelco Inc.
creditors approved a management plan to emerge from bankruptcy 23 months
after the Canadian steelmaker was declared insolvent, Bloomberg News
reported Friday. Creditors backed the plan through a vote in Toronto
last week, with 78.4 percent supporting the agreement, said Alex
Morrison, a vice president of Ernst & Young LLP, the accounting firm
appointed by the court to oversee the bankruptcy. The plan is subject to
approval by Superior Court Judge James Farley, who set a Dec. 12
deadline for expiration of Stelco's protection from creditors. Creditors
will receive C$500 of floating-rate notes, C$250 cash or a portion in
new shares for each C$1,000 of debt. They will also receive two new
common shares and an undetermined number of warrants, giving them the
right to purchase additional equity, said Morrison.
href='http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000082&sid=aiwPOQXuToZ0&refer=canada'>Read
more.
id='12'>Korean Court Cracks Down on Bankruptcy Fraud
After finding out
that an owner of company hid the assets of his company in the process of
composition and led the company to bankruptcy, the Korean court accused
him for bankruptcy fraud, BBC News reported yesterday. It is the first
time ever that a court has accused the owner of a bankrupt company for
bankruptcy fraud. The accused is the former owner of Dodo Company who is
identified as Y (48). His company was doing well with famous
advertisement of its product, algantong powder, which used well-known
female entertainers. The president of the company was changed in the
re-composition process, but the situation did not get better. The court
interrogated the new president several times. It is rare for the court
to directly interrogate a company president.
href='http://english.donga.com/srv/service.php3?bicode=040000&biid=2005121285418'>Read
more.
id='13'>Bangkok's PTT Plans to Send Piti to Run TPI after Path
Cleared
PTT Plc will
appoint Piti Yimprasert, the president of Thai Oil Plc, to take the helm
of Thai Petrochemical Industry Plc (TPI) following the Central
Bankruptcy Court's dismissal of TPI founder Prachai Leophairatana's
petition to suspend the company's recapitalization process, the Bangkok
Post reported Saturday. The court yesterday dismissed Mr Prachai's
petition, which sought to suspend the plan of TPI's plan administrators
to sell TPI's recapitalisation shares to PTT and a number of state-owned
entities. He also sought to increase the offering price for the shares
to 6.70 baht each as opposed to the proposed 3.30 baht. Judge Ongarj
Narmmeesee said the court had already rejected a similar request filed
by the debtor in August. By law, a judge may not rule twice on the same
issue.
href='http://www.bangkokpost.com/101205_Business/10Dec2005_biz40.php'>Read
more.