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A U.S. judge overseeing the bankruptcy of Linn Energy LLC said yesterday that he is prepared to confirm its restructuring plan with slight tweaks, backing the oil-and-gas producer's goal of shedding $5.5 billion in debt and splitting into two companies, Reuters reported. Bankruptcy Judge David Jones at the end of a hearing in Houston congratulated Linn's legal team and lawyers for working with its key stakeholders, noting that the company would have faced a hard time trying to restructure had they not agreed on the plan. Judge Jones added that he expects a final version of the plan to be filed with him by today. Linn filed for bankruptcy in May and had been negotiating with stakeholders in recent months on how best to split assets with its Berry Petroleum Co LLC subsidiary. In 2013, Linn acquired Berry for $4.3 billion, creating one of the largest independent energy producers. Under Linn's plan, Berry will become an independent company. Linn will shed nearly $4.3 billion of the roughly $6 billion in debt it had when it filed for bankruptcy. Berry will cut nearly $1.2 billion of its $1.7 billion in pre-petition debt. Read more. 

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The events leading up to the collapse of Dewey & LeBoeuf, once one of New York’s most prominent law firms, are about to be relived for a second time in a Manhattan state courtroom, the New York Times DealBook blog reported yesterday. Prosecutors will again try to secure convictions of two former Dewey executives — Stephen DiCarmine and Joel Sanders — nearly 15 months after a state judge declared a mistrial in an earlier criminal case and almost five years since the law firm filed for bankruptcy. Jury selection began yesterday in New York State Supreme Court, and prosecutors have suggested that the second trial may not be much shorter than the earlier proceeding, which stretched out over five months. It ended with jurors unable to reach a unanimous verdict after 21 days of deliberations. Some jurors from the first trial said the length of the proceedings and the number of charges — over 100 counts against the three defendants — had made it difficult to reach a unanimous verdict. This time around, prosecutors are expected to introduce much of the same evidence and call the same witnesses. But at least jurors will have to consider fewer charges against DiCarmine, Dewey’s former executive director, and Sanders, the firm’s former chief financial officer.

Peabody Energy Corp.’s plan to emerge from chapter 11 bankruptcy faces a "material risk" that the U.S. coal producer could suffer a $1 billion revenue loss due to a disputed lease at the world's largest coal mine, according to an objection filed to its reorganization plan, Reuters reported yesterday. The plan by Peabody, the world's largest private-sector coal company, to cut $5 billion of debt and emerge from bankruptcy in April is supported by most of its creditors, but has faced a series of official objections from other parties. Oil and gas driller Berenergy Corp. and Peabody hold overlapping federal mineral leases in Wyoming's Powder River Basin, where Peabody operates the North Antelope Rochelle mine that provides the bulk of its coal production. In October a Wyoming District Court ruled that Peabody was entitled to mine through Berenergy's wells as long as it made certain payments to the oil and gas company. An appeal is pending before the state's Supreme Court.

ABN Amro wants to know what became of more than $300 million which it claims was collateral that the bankrupt U.S. unit of cocoa supplier Transmar Group may have moved to a European affiliate, Bloomberg News reported on Friday. The Dutch bank asked a federal judge in Manhattan for permission “to investigate the facts and circumstances surrounding the apparent disappearance of hundreds of millions of dollars in collateral and other property” from the estate of Transmar Commodity Group Ltd., which filed for bankruptcy in New York on the last day of 2016. ABN Amro, which is an agent for a lender group on the $400 million Transmar Commodity credit facility, said in a Jan. 17 court filing that about $313 million in asset value vanished from the company’s books sometime after the end of October. The bank said that some of the assets may have been transferred to Transmar affiliate Euromar Commodities GmbH. Euromar, which owns a cocoa-processing factory in Fehrbellin, Germany, began its own insolvency proceedings in the country in early December. The processor was partly felled by the U.K.’s decision to leave the European Union, which weakened the pound and drove up prices for London cocoa futures.