%1

JPMorgan Chase & Co. scored a partial victory yesterday in a long-running dispute over the repayment of a $1.5 billion loan it made to General Motors’ bankrupt predecessor, known as ‘Old GM,’ Reuters reported. Bankruptcy Judge <b>Martin Glenn</b> sided with the bank against Old GM’s unsecured creditors, who have been trying to claw back the money, finding that most assets securing the loan, like robots and conveyor belts, were “fixtures” covered by a JPMorgan lien. Unsecured creditors had hoped to convince Judge Glenn the assets were not covered by the lien, which would have cleared the way for them to try to recoup money that Old GM repaid to the bank. JPMorgan said that it was reviewing the ruling. A lawyer for unsecured creditors declined to comment. In addition to determining if the assets were fixtures, Judge Glenn was also asked to determine the value of the equipment. The judge rejected the bank’s proposed valuation, although he also rejected the valuation method proposed by unsecured creditors.

The court-appointed trustee in charge of China Fishery Group Ltd. isn’t backing down in a bankruptcy battle with HSBC Ltd. , which he is investigating for aggressive collection tactics that allegedly had a “severely negative impact” on the fishing enterprise, the Wall Street Journal reported today. In court papers filed on Thursday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York, the trustee, William Brandt Jr., asked a bankruptcy judge to reaffirm his power to investigate HSBC. Brandt has been largely successful in the long-running row with HSBC, winning a court order in July from Judge James Garrity Jr. allowing him to investigate the bank for collection efforts that Mr. Brandt said may have stunted China Fishery’s operations. “Some creditors may have overstepped their bounds,” Brandt said last month. China Fishery filed for chapter 11 protection in June 2016. Brandt said that HSBC is now “trying to delay compliance” with the judge’s order, refusing to accept subpoenas for documents or to respond to other requests for information related to the probe. A hearing on the matter is set for Thursday.

Almost two years after a once-promising organic fish farm and produce-growing venture went belly up, the Continental Organics saga continues to play out in bankruptcy court and lawsuits by two Orange County, N.Y. creditors, the Middletown (N.Y.) Times-Herald Record reported today. The creditors, a builder and an engineering firm involved in construction of the business, have sued three times to try to recover payments they claim they are owed. This month, their pending cases in district court were transferred to the bankruptcy court in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., after Michael Finnegan Sr., a founder and the CEO of Continental Organics, filed for personal bankruptcy for the second time since business went sour in 2015. Finnegan, a former top attorney for Gov. George Pataki in the mid-1990s, helped launch the New Windsor, N.Y.-based company in 2011 after working on Wall Street as a managing director at JPMorgan Chase. Part of the business involved raising thousands of tilapia at a time in large indoor pools. The other part was an aquaponics greenhouse in which lettuce, tomatoes and other produce were grown, using the fish manure as a fertilizer. Continental Organics, which expanded after it opened and was said to employ 42 people in 2014, never achieved its founders’ ambitions. The company closed and filed for bankruptcy protection in October 2015, leaving a trail of creditors and about 60,000 stranded tilapia that Sterling National Bank was still feeding to keep alive three months later.

The U.S. government expects this year to begin payouts from a $4 billion fund for Bernard Madoff’s victims, ending their nearly nine-year wait to begin recouping losses from his Ponzi scheme, Reuters reported. In a letter made public yesterday, the U.S. Department of Justice said that it “recently notified victims whose petitions have been approved and is poised to issue initial distributions from the Assets Forfeiture Fund by the end of 2017.” The undated letter by Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd was addressed to Florida Congressman Vern Buchanan, who had complained to the Justice Department about payout delays. Payouts from the government fund are expected to go to 35,508 Madoff victims whose total losses exceeded $6.5 billion. Nearly all had invested indirectly with Madoff, such as through “feeder funds,” and roughly three-quarters have received nothing since the Ponzi scheme was uncovered in December 2008.