Utility and telecom contractor Consolidated Infrastructure Group Inc. has filed for bankruptcy protection after losing millions of dollars in a legal battle against a competitor over workers it had lured away for its own projects, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Executives who put the Omaha, Neb., company into bankruptcy on Wednesday said that they plan to look for buyers for the company, which once employed more than 1,000 people. The chapter 11 filing will help Consolidated Infrastructure Group avoid shutting down while its remaining 75 employees work on its three contracts. President Michael Johnson said in documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., that the company, which faces $9 million in debt, doesn’t have enough money to pay its bills. Shutting down abruptly “could result in a public safety crisis in the communities where the contracts are located,” Johnson told Judge Brendan Linehan Shannon in court documents. Founded in 2016, the company provides information about what lies beneath a property’s surface to construction firms that are building or repairing buried lines for electric, gas, water, sewer, cable and telecom companies throughout North America. Johnson blamed the company’s troubles on several money-losing contracts and a legal dispute with Indiana-based USIC LLC, a much larger competitor.
