%1

A pair of Spokane (Wash.) doctors may be able to settle their $191 million bankruptcy by paying as little as $130,000 to be split among more than 8,000 creditors, the Seattle Spokesman-Review reported. Attorney John Munding, who was appointed as trustee in the case, proposed the settlement earlier this month in a bid to resolve the chapter 7 bankruptcy filed by Drs. Debra and Sajid Ravasia. Along with a list of conditions, the Ravasias could settle the case by either transferring $175,000 from a deferred compensation account or coming up with $130,000 in cash. The Ravasias jointly filed for bankruptcy in January based on the failed companies run by Debra Ravasia, a gynecologist, who up until last year was the executive director of the Northwest Health Summit and Ajuva Spa. The bankruptcy filing generated scores of complaints from former clients who questioned the billing practices of the businesses run by Debra Ravasia. Sajid Ravasia is a psychiatrist at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center.

Parties involved in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis bankruptcy proceedings made final arguments in front of a federal judge on Tuesday, with each side making accusations of deceptive tactics and baseless claims, the St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press reported yesterday. The proceedings are intended to work out a plan for paying survivors of sexual abuse at the hands of clergy. After listening to arguments by multiple attorneys, presiding U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Kressel took the case under advisement. Judge Kressel is expected to make a decision in the coming weeks on which reorganization plan will be used in the settlement. Two plans are under consideration in the wake of the archdiocese’s chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in January 2015. The first was crafted by lawyers for the archdiocese and rejected by the group of survivors. The second was submitted by attorneys for the survivors.

Coal producer Peabody Energy Corp. says its recent emergence from bankruptcy shields it from lawsuits brought by three coastal California communities against fossil fuel companies over rising sea levels and global warming, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The lawsuits were filed last month by the counties of San Mateo and Marin in Northern California and the southern city of Imperial Beach. The suits seek to hold more than three dozen oil, gas and coal companies responsible for greenhouse-gas emissions produced over decades. The lawsuits link these emissions to global climate change and rising sea levels, which they say have made coastal communities more vulnerable to flooding and other dangers. Peabody, which emerged from chapter 11 in April, said on Monday in papers filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Missouri that it should be dropped as a defendant in these lawsuits, saying provisions in its court-approved bankruptcy plan block the California lawsuits from moving forward against the company.

Quadrant 4 Systems' unsecured creditors’ committee filed an objection in bankruptcy court to the company's post-petition financing motion, BankruptcyData.com reported today. The committee asserts, "The Proposed Final Order is not a proper exercise of the Debtor's business judgment. The Debtor has no meaningful leverage in its negotiations with its primary lender, BMO Harris Bank, N.A. ('BMO'), who continues to exert unabated control over the Debtor.” The objection continued that the debtor has no intent to reorganize and therefore its decisions “must be considered in light of what's best for its estate and its unsecured creditors and not just its senior lender.”

Already facing up to 20 years in federal prison, disgraced former lawyer Todd Prins now is tangling with the Internal Revenue Service, the San Antonio Express-News reported today. Prins tried making good on his delinquent income taxes — sending the agency $82,400 in October. Problem is, the IRS doesn’t want the payment, saying in a court filing on Wednesday in Prins’ personal bankruptcy case that the money was “likely stolen.” Prins transferred the money — belonging to a Houston company — out of his now-shuttered San Antonio law firm’s trust account to the IRS, the agency alleges in a complaint also filed on Wednesday. Prins, in a June court filing, said that the IRS’s failure to give him credit for paying the taxes contradicts his understanding of a confidential agreement reached with federal prosecutors.