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New York hedge fund Elliott Management Corp. is eyeing the pile of professional bills Energy Future Holdings Corp. has paid, a mound that was near the $500 million mark in April and continues to accumulate, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Sunday, Elliott launched a campaign to get a seat on the official committee that reviews fees in the chapter 11 proceeding of Energy Future, the former TXU Corp. Earlier this year, the hedge fund became Energy Future’s largest creditor and launched an activist effort to push the three-year-old bankruptcy proceeding to a swift end. That end could come as early as next year, assuming Sempra Energy Inc. succeeds in buying Energy Future’s last remaining asset, an 80 percent stake in the electricity transmission business, Oncor. Elliott battled a $9 billion offer for Oncor from Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Energy Co., holding the door open for Sempra — and a $450 million price improvement.

A federal judge ruled on Friday that the public trustee in Alice Rogoff’s Alaska Dispatch News bankruptcy case may hire a Seattle legal firm with expertise in recovering assets, the Alaska Journal of Commerce. Bankruptcy Judge Gary Spraker didn’t buy into an argument by Rogoff’s attorney that such a move would be a wasted expense. Public trustee Nacole Jipping is obligated to examine the affairs and records of Alaska Dispatch News LLC and requires special legal expertise to do so, her attorney, William Artus, had argued in asking Spraker’s permission to hire extra counsel. “To suggest the distribution would be smaller if (another attorney is hired) is not sufficient basis, or any basis for that matter, to not employ special counsel,” Spraker said in response to Rogoff’s bankruptcy attorney, Cabot Christianson, who argued extensively in written and oral arguments against hiring Bush Kornfeld of Seattle. Christianson claimed that Rogoff would be the recipient of 88 percent of any money recovered during the chapter 7 process because she is owed $16.6 million in “loans” she claims to have made to the Alaska Dispatch News. Therefore, she would see the biggest losses in a lower monetary recovery after contingency fees are paid out.

Xceligent Inc., one of the country’s largest commercial real-estate data providers, told its staff to “pack up their personal belongings and exit the building within the next 30 minutes” in the wake of its chapter 7 liquidation filing on Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported. “A chapter 7 trustee will inventory all company property and, where missing, may seek to recover such property through the relevant court,” said an email delivered to Xceligent employees after the filing. “It is therefore extremely important that no company property be taken with your personal belongings.” Xceligent, which provided the commercial real-estate industry building-specific data on such things as occupancy and rents, began the liquidation process following a bruising one-year legal battle with arch-rival CoStar Group Inc. Xceligent’s business results also were disappointing, causing its parent, Daily Mail and General Trust PLC, to write its value down to zero in recent months.

Charlotte Russe Inc. is poised to become the latest apparel retailer to hand control to creditors under an out-of-court restructuring transaction announced on Friday, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Charlotte Russe said it signed a deal to hand lenders 100 percent of its equity ownership, subject to dilution from a management stock plan, in exchange for their agreement to forgive $124 million in loan debt and make other concessions. Private-equity firm Advent International took San Diego-based Charlotte Russe private in 2009 for $17.50 a share, or $380 million. The company operates mall-based stores in the crowded “fast fashion” segment, selling inexpensive trendy teenage girl’s clothing and competing with the likes of Forever 21 and H&M.

Bankruptcy Judge Michael Wiles yesterday shot down a request by creditors of Westinghouse Electric Co LLC for a bigger role in the nuclear technology company’s bankruptcy just days after its parent company, Toshiba Corp., proposed a restructuring plan, Reuters reported. Judge Wiles dismissed claims by the official committee of unsecured creditors that Westinghouse was not making progress in restructuring its debt. The New York-based judge told a hearing that the creditors’ request to file their own proposal would have given them an “opportunity to throw a bomb” into the case just days after Westinghouse revealed that Toshiba had privately presented its plan. Westinghouse can now begin negotiating with Toshiba to hammer out details of a plan to bring the company out of chapter 11 bankruptcy in the coming months.

A second insurer has agreed to settle its part in a lawsuit brought by the Diocese of Duluth in its ongoing bankruptcy, the Duluth (Minn.) News Tribune reported. Fireman's Fund Insurance Co. would pay the diocese $975,000 to resolve claims filed in federal court in June 2016. It is the second of five insurers named in the lawsuit to reach an agreement. The proposed settlement, which must still be approved by a judge, would be used to continue litigation against the remaining insurers with the goal of obtaining monetary damages for victims of child sexual abuse, according to court documents. The diocese filed for bankruptcy in December 2015 in the wake of a $4.9 million verdict in the first case to go to trial under the Minnesota Child Victims Act. It sued the five insurers six months later, seeking to force coverage of 125 abuse claims received in the bankruptcy case.

An unofficial committee of Seadrill’s unsecured bondholders has submitted a binding alternative proposal for the company’s restructuring, Reuters reported. Norwegian-born billionaire John Fredriksen and a group of hedge funds proposed on Sept. 12 to invest $1.06 billion via new equity and secured debt to restructure indebted Seadrill, once the largest drilling rig operator by market value. Yesterday was the deadline to submit binding proposals to Seadrill, which has been seeking the best available deal as part of its chapter 11 bankruptcy procedure. The unofficial committee includes about 40 investors from the U.S., Europe and Asia, and funds managed by Nordic asset manager DNB Asset Management, Nine Masts Capital Ltd of Hong Kong, and U.S. hedge funds such as Phoenix Investment Adviser LLC.

GenOn Energy Inc. is working to cobble together a deal designed to ease court approval of its chapter 11 bankruptcy exit plan, which is slated for review today, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The deal relates to legal clashes with owners of plants in Maryland, who claim GenOn and its owner, NRG Energy Inc., improperly manipulated the finances of a subsidiary in a futile effort to avoid bankruptcy for GenOn. Papers filed on Sunday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston outline a potential settlement that would end the threat of continued legal problems concerning the subsidiary, GenOn Mid-Atlantic LLC, or GenMa. Lawyers for GenOn, which twice postponed the crucial confirmation hearing on its chapter 11 plan, couldn’t immediately be reached yesterday to discuss the status of talks over the settlement.