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Tesla Inc. says a former battery factory worker who publicly criticized the company should be barred from using bankruptcy to avoid paying a $425,000 debt from a yearslong legal feud with Elon Musk, Bloomberg News reported. The company on Tuesday urged a bankruptcy judge not to let Martin Tripp off the hook after he acknowledged violating trade secret laws and confidentiality agreements. The filing is the latest twist in a dispute dating back to 2018, when Tripp anonymously told the news media that Tesla was wasting a significant amount of raw materials at its Nevada Gigafactory. That ended up getting him fired, and escalated into an exchange of insults and lawsuits with Musk and Tesla. Tripp agreed to pay $400,000 in 2020 to settle Tesla’s suit accusing him of stealing confidential data. He’d also been ordered to pay Tesla $25,000 in sanctions for posting court documents online in violation of a judge’s order. Tripp had been making payments to Tesla until late September, when he filed for bankruptcy, according to Tuesday’s filing.

U.S. prosecutors said they do not plan to conduct a second trial against Sam Bankman-Fried, who was convicted last month of stealing from customers of his now-bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency exchange, Reuters reported. In a letter filed on Friday night in federal court in Manhattan, prosecutors said the "strong public interest" in a prompt resolution of their case against the 31-year-old former billionaire outweighed the benefits of a second trial. Prosecutors said that interest "weighs particularly heavily here," given that Bankman-Fried's scheduled March 28, 2024, sentencing will likely include orders of forfeiture and restitution for victims of his crimes. Jurors on Nov. 2 convicted Bankman-Fried on all seven fraud and conspiracy counts he faced. Prosecutors had accused him of looting $8 billion from FTX customers out of sheer greed. Bankman-Fried had faced six additional charges that had been severed from his first trial, including campaign finance violations, conspiracy to commit bribery, and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business. He had been extradited in December 2022 from the Bahamas, where FTX was based, to face the seven earlier charges.

Rudolph W. Giuliani filed for bankruptcy yesterday, a day after a federal judge ordered him to start paying the $148 million in damages he owes to two former Georgia election workers for spreading lies that they had tried to steal the 2020 election from Donald J. Trump, the New York Times reported. Giuliani also owes millions of dollars in legal fees as well as unpaid state and federal income taxes, according to the filing. Last week, a jury ordered Mr. Giuliani to pay two former Georgia election workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, $148 million for baseless accusations he had made about them cheating when they were counting votes in Fulton County, Ga., on Nov. 3, 2020. On Wednesday, the judge overseeing that case, Beryl A. Howell, ordered Mr. Giuliani to start paying the two women immediately out of concern that he might “conceal his assets” if he were allowed to wait the typical 30 days. In total, Mr. Giuliani said in the chapter 11 filing that he owes creditors $152.7 million as well as other potential damages he faces in pending lawsuits. Mr. Giuliani owed more than $700,000 in back federal taxes and almost $300,000 in delinquent state taxes. His bankruptcy filing said he also owed about $1.3 million to a law firm that has represented him in various criminal investigations in recent years. He owes another $387,000 to a firm that has shepherded him through disbarment proceedings in New York and Washington stemming from his efforts to keep Mr. Trump in power.

Oil-and-gas company Hess and its bankrupt subsidiary Honx have agreed to pay up to $187 million under a deal to resolve the current and future asbestos claims asserted by the former contractors and employees of an oil refinery in the U.S. Virgin Islands, according to a settlement document filed with the court Thursday, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Hess placed Honx, previously known as Hess Oil New York, under chapter 11 bankruptcy in April of last year to drive a settlement of hundreds of personal-injury lawsuits stemming from alleged exposure to asbestos, silica and other toxic substances at the St. Croix oil refinery. The facility was known from its 1966 opening through 1998 as Hovic, when it was owned solely by Hess, and later as Hovensa and then Limetree Bay, according to court papers. The chapter 11 proceedings in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston have dragged out as Honx has said that Hess agreed to fund any asbestos claims by maintaining a $10 million reserve, an amount criticized by asbestos claimants as “woefully insufficient.” But monthslong negotiations recently led to a deal under which Honx and Hess agreed to pay $105 million to resolve roughly 910 current asbestos claims. In addition, the companies agreed to pay $45 million for future claims, along with up to $37 million in the following 25 years to fund additional claims as they arise, according to the settlement term sheet filed with the court.

Atlas Biologicals Inc., a Fort Collins, Colo.-based company that produces fetal bovine serum, has filed an adversarial action in the Thomas Kutrubes personal bankruptcy, seeking to prevent the discharge of a court-ordered penalty in Kutrubes’ bankruptcy, the Loveland (Colo.) Reporter-Herald reported. Kutrubes is the founder of Peak Serum Inc., a company formed in 2014 to compete against Atlas, where Kutrubes began his career in 2005. Fetal bovine serum is a byproduct of meatpacking and is derived from cow fetuses; it is used worldwide in biological research and cell generation. In 2016, Atlas determined that Kutrubes had stolen customer information and had misrepresented his relationship with Atlas to customers. Atlas sued and won a $2.05 million judgment. Kutrubes appealed and lost. Kutrubes and Peak Serum filed for chapter 11 protection — Peak Serum in 2019 and Kutrubes in 2020. The personal bankruptcy filing showed assets of $904,109 and liabilities of $3.6 million, including the judgment that he listed as disputed. The chapter 11 action was converted to chapter 7 liquidation Sept. 20, 2023. In chapter 7, a trustee sells eligible property and pays whatever debts can be covered by it.

Bankrupt pharmacy chain Rite Aid Corp. agreed to begin court-supervised mediation with lower ranking creditors, including groups that blame the company for contributing to America’s opioid addiction crisis, Bloomberg News reported. The company, backed by senior lenders, will negotiate with unsecured creditors about how to end the retailer’s insolvency case and on a potential loan package to fund the company’s exit from bankruptcy, Rite Aid attorney Aparna Yenamandra said in court Tuesday. The company will try reach a deal before the end of January, Yenamandra said. The pharmacy chain held a video court hearing Tuesday to ask US Bankruptcy Judge Michael Kaplan to approve a $3.25 billion loan package to refinance older debt and to help pay for the company’s reorganization case. Kaplan said he will sign an order approving the financing later this week after the company makes adjustments to the wording of the loan proposal documents. Rite Aid is trying to sell itself while under court protection in order to pay creditors owed billions of dollars. Should the company fail to find a buyer willing to keep at least part of the chain open, Rite Aid would be forced to liquidate. When retailers liquidate in bankruptcy, lower-ranking creditors are typically paid far less than if the company successfully reorganizes.