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A Hanjin Shipping attorney told a federal court last Tuesday that it has virtually no assets in the U.S. to compensate several retailers, logistics providers, insurance companies and other claimants who fear the loss of claim rights if the court recognizes the carriers’ South Korean bankruptcy case, JOC.com reported on Wednesday. The claimants, in papers filed in U.S. District Bankruptcy court in New Jersey fear that their rights will be impaired, or lost if the court approves Hanjin’s request for Chapter 15 status. Approval would mean U.S. bankruptcy courts recognize the Korean bankruptcy proceeding, enabling the carrier to take certain actions in the U.S. to assist the case overseas. But a hearing on Nov. 22, which was scheduled to hear the case, was adjourned after Hanjin attorneys said eight objections had been filed, more than expected, and they needed additional time to prepare for them. The objections will now be heard Dec. 13. Read more. (Subscription required.) 

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More wreckage from Anguilla’s offshore banking troubles has washed up in a U.S. bankruptcy court, with the filing of a chapter 11 proceeding for Caribbean Commercial Investment Bank Ltd., the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. Tuesday’s chapter 11 filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York came from William Tacon, a court-appointed administrator of the Anguillan bank. Earlier this year Tacon also placed the offshore private bank and trust operation owned by the failed National Bank of Anguilla under bankruptcy protection in New York. Much of the legal action is taking place in Anguilla, where the fate of the homegrown banking system is a matter of great public interest. The money, however, is in New York, Tacon says, and that is why he’s using the investigatory powers of U.S. bankruptcy. In both bankruptcy proceedings, Tacon has taken issue with the handling of the troubled banks by local regulators. He is seeking U.S. court aid in tracking and reclaiming funds he says belong to depositors.

U.S. coal producer Peabody Energy Corp. said on Wednesday that it is closer to exiting bankruptcy, with a debt dispute between creditors fizzling as a recent increase in coal prices boosts their chances for recovery, Reuters reported. Peabody filed for chapter 11 protection in April, after a sharp decline in coal prices left it unable to service $10 billion of debt. A creditor fight launched by some of Wall Street's most litigious investment funds, Aurelius Capital Management and Elliott Management, put the reorganization on hold. Seven months later, prices for coal used to generate power and make steel have surged, particularly in Australia, where Peabody expanded with the $5.1 billion acquisition of Australia's Macarthur Coal in 2011. The surge means that secured lenders such as Citibank are now likely to recoup their investment, making a legal battle over how to treat long-term debt in calculating Peabody's assets largely irrelevant. On Wednesday, Peabody said the company was working to resolve the dispute that pitted its secured lenders against unsecured creditors, including distressed debt hedge funds Aurelius and Elliott, who were seeking a larger share of Peabody's assets in the reorganization.

Defunct telecommunications company Nortel Networks Inc. won a victory in its fight with federal pension regulators when a bankruptcy judge rejected a briefing schedule proposed by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. (PBGC), Bloomberg BNA reported yesterday. Nortel, which filed for bankruptcy in 2009, had clashed with the PBGC over how to value the company’s unfunded pension liabilities. The PBGC claimed in 2009 that Nortel owed $593 million in pension payments, but the agency upped that amount to $708 million in 2014, a move that Nortel said lacked factual support. The judge’s decision yesterday setting an evidentiary hearing for Jan. 9-11, 2017, is a win for Nortel, which argued that the PBGC should be forced to turn over documents relevant to its valuation process. 

A federal bankruptcy judge yesterday dismissed lawsuits by the trustee liquidating Bernard Madoff's firm to recoup funds from Koch Industries Inc., the company controlled by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, and dozens of other defendants, Reuters reported yesterday. Bankruptcy Judge Stuart Bernstein said that defendants in most of the 88 lawsuits could keep money that Irving Picard, who is liquidating Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, traced to the swindler but was sent outside the United States. Picard had sought to recover hundreds of millions of dollars from foreign entities that had received Madoff-linked money from other foreign transferees, including "feeder funds" operated by Fairfield Greenwich Group and Tremont Group Holdings, as well as the Kingate feeder funds. But in an 87-page decision, Judge Bernstein dismissed a majority of Picard's claims against the "subsequent foreign transferees" because of international comity, the need to let other countries enforce their own laws. He also dismissed dozens of claims, including against affiliates of HSBC Holdings Plc and UBS Group AG, based on "extraterritoriality," because the defendants had insufficient ties with the United States. Read more. 

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Spanish renewable energy and engineering firm Abengoa SA has asked a U.S. bankruptcy court to enjoin legal action and future claims by creditors who are unsatisfied with a high-stakes plan to restructure $10 billion of debt, Reuters reported yesterday. Abengoa, a Sevilla-based company with a global renewable energy footprint, put its U.S. subsidiaries in chapter 11 protection this year and filed for chapter 15 protection from creditors of non-U.S. businesses while it thrashed out a refinancing deal to avoid becoming Spain's largest-ever corporate failure. Last month the vast majority of Abengoa's international creditors signed on to its so-called master restructuring agreement, which will give creditors equity in exchange for debt. The deal was approved by a Spanish court on Nov. 8.

Platinum Partners’ flagship hedge fund on Monday secured a legal shield that puts on-hold litigation accusing the troubled fund of looting Texas oil and gas company Black Elk Energy Offshore LLC, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Bankruptcy Judge Shelley Chapman said during a court hearing in Manhattan that she will grant the Platinum fund and a separate feeder fund recognition under chapter 15, the section of U.S. bankruptcy law dealing with international insolvencies. Her decision gives breathing space to the funds’ Cayman Island liquidators. The funds were placed in liquidation in the Cayman Islands over the summer with “a large amount of investor redemptions remaining unpaid past their due date,” according to filings by the liquidators made with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York.

The U.S. government's bankruptcy watchdog objected yesterday to a Caesars Entertainment Corp. subsidiary's proposal to exit chapter 11, threatening to derail a largely consensual plan to slash $10 billion of debt, Reuters reported. The Caesars subsidiary, Caesars Entertainment Operating Co. Inc. (CEOC), filed an $18 billion bankruptcy in January 2015 amid allegations by creditors that its private equity-backed parent had looted the unit of its best assets and stripped debt guarantees. Feuding parties made a peace deal in September that included a $5 billion contribution by Caesars to the unit's reorganization plan in exchange for releases from billions of dollars in potential legal claims. In a filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Chicago, the U.S. Trustee objected to the releases and the exculpation of "a wide array of parties for acts far beyond the plan or the Chapter 11 cases." The U.S. Trustee called the releases "blanket immunity." A report by an independent examiner in March said that Caesars and its private equity backers Apollo Global Management LLC and TPG Capital Management LP could be on the hook for up to $5.1 billion in damages for the alleged asset-stripping.

Brookfield Asset Management has hung a possible price tag on its proposed takeover of TerraForm Power Inc., at $13 per share, a penny under Thursday’s market closing price, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. The overture from Brookfield and its deal ally, the hedge fund Appaloosa Management, spurred a slight uptick in trading in TerraForm Power, a publicly traded “yieldco” that owns renewable energy assets, which gained about 3 percent in the hours after the Friday announcement with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Brookfield has been openly pursuing TerraForm Power since June. In a letter emailed on Thursday to the independent directors of TerraForm Power, Brookfield urged swift action to stay ahead of bondholders, and, potentially, bankruptcy. By Dec. 6, bondholders could be in position to push TerraForm Power into bankruptcy, Brookfield wrote. That is due largely to a running event of default on debt related to the company’s failure to file audited financial statements.