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Crypto lender Genesis Global is pursuing a chapter 11 liquidation plan that abandons a previous settlement proposal to restructure the $1.7 billion in loans it extended to its parent company Digital Currency Group, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Genesis filed court papers Wednesday for a plan to exit from chapter 11 without a resolution of its claims against DCG, the crypto conglomerate founded by finance veteran Barry Silbert. Genesis is now preparing to liquidate its assets without the settlement proposal reached in August that intended to deliver estimated recoveries of between 70% to 90% for Genesis customers, including users of crypto exchange Gemini Trust’s Earn program. The settlement proposal didn’t get the support of key stakeholders, notably Gemini and its founders, the Winklevoss brothers, and the parties had been in continuing negotiations. Ultimately, Genesis was unable to reach an agreement with DCG on final debt terms, Genesis said in filings with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York. And last week, New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit against Gemini Trust, Genesis and DCG for allegedly defrauding more than 230,000 investors of more than $1 billion. In light of the lawsuit, Genesis and the official committee representing its customers determined that a settlement with DCG isn’t a viable route, Genesis said in the filings.

Shareholders of Western Global Airlines (WGA) have requested the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware to dismiss or reduce to zero, claims arising from a class action suit claiming prohibited financial transactions relating to the company's employee stock ownership plan (ESOP), CH-Aviation.com reported. The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) is also investigating the circumstances of the ESOP transactions. The Neff family shareholders are seeking a court order subordinating the ESOP claims to those of general unsecured creditors to be reduced to zero or disallowed entirely. On October 17, WGA and its debtor subsidiaries in chapter 11 protection filed their objection to the class action, arguing the ESOP claims be disallowed for purposes of voting on the airline's restructuring plan. A court hearing has been scheduled for November 13 before Judge Karen B. Owens, but the court may grant the order without further notice or hearing if no responses to the shareholders' objection are filed.

Mutual funds that purchased $280 million of municipal debt to finance a 320-acre youth-sports complex near Phoenix would be virtually wiped out under a preliminary deal struck in the bankruptcy case, Bloomberg News reported. Miami-based Burke Operating Partners agreed in principal to purchase Legacy Park for $25.5 million, with most of the proceeds going to building contractors for unpaid work. Bondholders would receive $2.2 million in cash and 11% of preferred equity in a new company that would own the facility according to an agreement outlined in a bankruptcy court hearing late Tuesday. It would need to be approved in the bankruptcy process to take effect. Legacy Park has enough cash to remain open while the parties work to close the deal by the end of the November, said Keith Bierman, the complex’s chief restructuring officer. Legacy Cares filed for bankruptcy in May, saying construction setbacks, labor shortages and supply-chain delays amid the pandemic led to the park’s delayed opening and resulted in lost revenue. Mutual funds including the Vanguard Group and AllianceBernstein Holdings LP hold the $280 million of Legacy Cares bonds issued by an Arizona agency. The bonds last traded on Aug. 23 for 10 cents on the dollar. In addition to labor shortages, Legacy Park was also plagued by poor execution of restaurant and concession operations. In all, Legacy Park brought in just $27.7 million in 2022, far short of its nearly $100 million projection. It was losing more than $1 million a month on operations alone.

The Buffalo (N.Y.) Diocese is offering up to $100 million to settle child sex abuse claims in its federal bankruptcy case, the Buffalo News reported. As much as half of that would come from parishes, schools and other Catholic entities, while the diocese would also need to sell its Catholic Center on Main Street, the former Christ the King Seminary campus in the Town of Aurora and other properties. Those details were revealed in court papers filed late Monday in which diocese lawyers sought a preliminary injunction to keep all sex abuse lawsuits against parishes and schools grounded while mediated negotiations in the diocese bankruptcy case continue. Court papers said that the $100 million does not include insurance funds, while suggesting that insurance companies additionally could contribute “perhaps even hundreds of millions of dollars” to a settlement. Ilan D. Scharf, lead attorney for the unsecured creditors' committee that represents about 850 abuse claimants in the Buffalo Diocese bankruptcy case, declined to comment Tuesday on the numbers unveiled by the diocese lawyers. But some plaintiffs' lawyers on Tuesday accused the diocese of trying to "silence survivors" in its motion to halt the lawsuits. The Buffalo Diocese settlement offer appears to be very similar to the pending chapter 11 reorganization plan the Syracuse Diocese announced in July. Syracuse Bishop Douglas J. Lucia at the time said that the diocese had reached a deal with its creditors committee in which it would pay $50 million to a settlement trust, while its parishes would contribute $45 million, and $5 million would come from other Catholic entities. The full plan could be filed in court as early as next month.

BlockFi emerged from bankruptcy on Tuesday, nearly 11 months after it was swept away by the turbulence in the cryptocurrency industry following the collapse of FTX, Reuters reported. In its bankruptcy filing in November last year, BlockFi had cited its loans to FTX's sister firm Alameda as one of the reasons for the crisis it was facing. On Tuesday, the company said that it would officially begin enacting the actions detailed in its bankruptcy plan, like recovering assets it believes are owed to it by FTX, Three Arrows Capital and others. Any attempts to recover assets from those companies, however, will likely be contentious as both are themselves waddling through their respective bankruptcy processes. Separately, FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried is undergoing a trial for fraud. BlockFi said that withdrawals are currently available to nearly all of its Wallet customers. Those with BlockFi Interest Accounts and Retail Loans will be repaid over the coming months, but the amounts they receive could vary based on the outcome of the FTX bankruptcy, BlockFi said.

FTX Trading Ltd. is considering proposals from three bidders to restart trading on what had been one of the world’s biggest crypto exchanges before the company sank into bankruptcy amid fraud allegations, Bloomberg News reported. The company will make a decision about how to proceed by mid-December, the company’s investment banker, Kevin M. Cofsky of Perella Weinberg Partners, said Tuesday during a court hearing in Wilmington, Delaware. FTX is negotiating details of potentially binding offers with investors, Cofsky said. Options include selling the entire exchange, including a valuable list of more than 9 million customers, or bringing in a partner to help restart the exchange, Cofsky told US Bankruptcy Judge John Dorsey. FTX is also mulling a reboot of the trading platform on its own, he said. “We are engaging with multiple parties every day,” Cofsky said, without disclosing the names of the bidders. Since filing for bankruptcy last year, FTX has been trying to raise money to repay creditors. FTX’s administrators have so far recovered about $7 billion in assets, including $3.4 billion of crypto, according to court documents.

Federal judges in the Southern District of Texas have agreed to let a different court hear any lawsuits against U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David Jones — including the case that revealed his previously undisclosed relationship with a bankruptcy lawyer and prompted his resignation, Reuters reported. Chief U.S. District Judge Randy Crane in an order on Friday said that his counterpart in the Western District of Texas, Chief U.S. District Judge Alia Moses, had consented to the referral of all cases against Judge Jones to her. Moses, in turn, may either hear those cases herself or assign them to another judge on her court. While Crane did not give an explanation for his order, courts often transfer cases to other jurisdictions when there is a potential conflict. Just two lawsuits are pending against Judge Jones, both by self-represented litigants. One of them, by a former shareholder of energy company McDermott International, helped prompt Judge Jones' announced resignation on Oct. 15. McDermott had gone through a chapter 11 restructuring approved by the Houston-based bankruptcy judge in 2020. The Oct. 4 lawsuit, by former shareholder Michael Van Deelen, accused Jones of failing to disclose his relationship with a partner at Jackson Walker, a local law firm that handled many bankruptcy cases in Jones' courthouse, including that of McDermott.

Bankrupt Cyxtera Technologies Inc. is in advanced talks to sell a large swath of its data centers to Brookfield Infrastructure Partners, Bloomberg News reported. As part of its chapter 11 filing, Cyxtera has been looking at two possible tracks, either recapitalizing itself, with lenders taking control of the firm, or selling itself. Cxytera’s and Brookfield Infrastructure Partners’s negotiations are continuing and could still fall apart. Brookfield Infrastructure Partners has been building its data center holdings, with recent acquisitions of European firm Data4 and Compass Datacenters LLC. It also owns Dawn Acquisitions LLC, which does business as Evoque Data Center Solutions. Digital Realty Trust Inc. has also shown interest in some of Cxytera’s assets, Bloomberg previously reported. Prior to its June bankruptcy, Cyxtera had entered negotiations with lenders on how to tackle nearly $870 million of debt due next year. The company was formed in 2017 after CenturyLink’s data center and co-location business was combined with Medina Capital’s security and data analytics operations. In 2021, Cyxtera combined with a black-check firm in a deal valuing the combined company at about $3.4 billion on an enterprise basis.

While logistics visibility platform provider Slync had hoped that new management and a $24 million cash infusion in February would be enough to save the FreightTech company after its former CEO was indicted on fraud charges, the company filed for bankruptcy Wednesday and plans to wind down operations and sell off its technology, Freight Waves reported. The timing of Slync’s bankruptcy filing comes nearly three weeks after former Slync CEO Chris Kirchner — who was indicted in May on charges he swindled $25 million from investors for personal use — filed suit on Sept. 26 against his former employer for legal fee advancement and indemnification in Delaware’s Court of Chancery. Kirchner’s suit seeks to have Slync pay his legal bills in his ongoing fraud case involving the U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities Exchange Commission. After Kirchner’s assets were frozen, a federal public defender was assigned to handle his case. According to court documents, after Kirchner’s legal team initially reached out to Slync’s outside counsel on Aug. 30, Slync stated that it “will agree to advance” and that his legal team should reach out to Slync’s CEO John Urban “regarding logistics.” However, less than three weeks later, Slync’s outside counsel told Kirchner’s legal team that Slync “purportedly lacks sufficient liquidity to fund advancement.”