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Embattled airbag maker Takata Corp. filed for bankruptcy protection in Japan and said that it would seek $1.588 billion in financial aid from U.S.-based auto parts supplier Key Safety Systems, Reuters reported yesterday. The KSS deal would help it deal with the fallout from its defective airbag inflators at the centre of the global auto industry's biggest ever recall, the two companies said in a joint statement. The filing at the Tokyo District Court followed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection filing in the United States. As part of the bankruptcy protection plans, KSS would acquire all of Takata's assets barring certain assets and operations related to the airbag inflators involved in the global recall in the planned deal worth $1.59 billion. Takata would keep operations of its affected inflators for now to continue supplying recall replacement parts, and would eventually wind down those operations, the two companies said in a statement.

A court-appointed trustee for bankrupt Molycorp Minerals LLC will ask a judge Friday to approve the sale of the last remaining assets associated with a rare-earth mine at Mountain Pass, Calif. But a lawsuit over mineral rights and complaints by the losing bidder for those assets are complicating efforts to reopen the mine, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The dispute pits Oaktree Capital Management LP, which owns the most advanced ore processing equipment at the mine, against JHL Capital Group and QVT Financial LP, which control the most important mineral rights at the site. All of them held debt in Molycorp’s now-defunct parent, Molycorp Inc. until they traded their $1.9 billion in claims for different parts of the company. The court-appointed trustee held an auction on June 14 for the remaining parts of the mine hoping to attract a buyer to restart production and take responsibility for about $100 million in cleanup costs.

Honeywell International has interjected itself into the bankruptcy proceeding of the successors to Chicago Fire Brick and Wellsville Fire Brick, companies that spent a decade creating a trust that would pay individuals with asbestos claims, Forbes reported yesterday. On May 3, Honeywell asked the federal bankruptcy court in Oakland, Calif., to make those ballots public. Those holding claims against companies are asked to vote on proposed bankruptcy plans. Objecting to Honeywell's request is the trustee of CFB’s trust and the Pittsburgh asbestos firm Goldberg, Persky & White. “This court’s local rules required the Plan Proponents to file ‘all ballots,’” Honeywell’s attorneys wrote. “Yet the Plan Proponents failed to do so and have refused to provide copies of the ballots to Honeywell.”

After a bankruptcy auction where four bidders vied for battery maker Aquion Energy Inc., an entity called Juline-Titans LLC had the winning $9.16 million bid, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported today. The firm, which registered in Delaware on May 30, is an affiliate of the China Titans Energy Technology Group. Titans is an investment holdings company that “engages in research, development, manufacture and sale of electric products and equipment” in China. Aquion, the Lawrenceville, Pa.-based saltwater battery manufacturer, filed for bankruptcy in March after a decade of raking in Silicon Valley bonafides and capital. It will go before a bankruptcy judge to certify the sale.

Bankrupt Ignite Restaurant Group Inc. has opted for a bid for its assets too low for its needs, the government's bankruptcy watchdog said on Monday in court papers calling for an order rejecting the sale proposed by the owner of the Joe's Crab Shack chain, Reuters reported yesterday. The U.S. trustee in papers filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston said the $50 million bid "may not even come close" to paying Ignite's secured debt in full and only secured creditors would likely benefit from a sale at that price.

The dozen tenants left at Terrace Manor — a derelict 61-unit property in Southeast D.C. near the border with Maryland — are raising concerns about landlord Sanford Capital's plans to sell the affordable complex to a third-party buyer for $5.86 million as part of a chapter 11 case the Washington City Paper reported yesterday. Through its attorneys, the tenants association at the property has submitted a motion requesting an accelerated legal discovery process in the matter, with a judge expected to make a decision on a central aspect of the debtor's bankruptcy plan on July 5. The debtor, a Sanford Capital affiliate, seeks to sell Terrace Manor to an affiliate of a development firm called Equilibrium. Those two entities entered a purchase contract last June. Sanford's attorneys say a court-sanctioned deal would let the affiliate that controls the property pay off some $3 million in debt to its creditors, including its main lender, EagleBank. They also say a successful transfer would give the tenants what they want: new ownership of the property. But the tenants counter that they do not have sufficient information to believe that Terrace Manor is worth the proposed $5.86 million selling price or to know how Equilibrium plans to renovate the site to safe and habitable standards.