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After weeks of near silence on a critical component of its plan to exit bankruptcy protection, Relativity Media LLC said actor and "House of Cards" star Kevin Spacey won't take over as the Hollywood studio's chairman, Dow Jones Newswires reported yesterday. The withdrawal of Spacey's star power is the latest loop in Relativity's roller-coaster bankruptcy, during which the film studio has struggled to line up enough new investors to convince a judge to give it a second chance under a proposal that would erase hundreds of millions of dollars of debt. Bankruptcy Judge <b>Michael Wiles</b> in early February granted conditional approval to Relativity's bankruptcy-exit proposal, provided founder and Chief Executive Ryan Kavanaugh could raise about $80 million in new funding. The judge's preliminary approval of the plan was also based on a deal that would give Spacey and producer Dana Brunetti creative control of its upcoming films.

Russian billionaire Vladislav Doronin has scored victories in London and New York in a long-running dispute over a former business partner in his Aman Resorts luxury hotel chain, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Doronin’s first victory occurred earlier last week, when the High Court in London issued an order confirming the settlement between the Russian hotel operator and the U.K. liquidators of a company founded by U.S. venture capitalist Omar Amanat, Doronin’s ex-partner. The settlement order came just days after creditors tried to push the defunct shell company and former owner of the resort chain, Aman Resorts Group Ltd., into bankruptcy in New York. An involuntary bankruptcy petition had been filed listing creditors, including Amanat and other former directors, claiming that they were owed about $70 million. However, just days after the involuntary petition was filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York, the involuntary case took a sudden turn when a new legal team moved in to dismiss the case and the company’s bankruptcy lawyer withdrew from the proceedings.

The Diocese of Duluth, Minn., is expected to enter mediation this summer with representatives of dozens of alleged victims of child sexual abuse, as the parties seek to reach an amicable agreement in the diocese's ongoing bankruptcy case, the Duluth News Tribune reported today. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Kressel approved a motion to appoint Judge Gregg Zive as a mediator to work with the diocese, its insurers and attorneys representing claimants. Judge Zive was mutually recommended by the diocese and St. Paul-based Jeff Anderson and Associates, the law firm representing most of its creditors. Judge Kressel said that Judge Zive is not expected to be available until June, which places the likely start date after the May 25 deadline for abuse victims to file claims in bankruptcy court.

Arch Coal Inc. paid company insiders $29 million in the year leading up to its chapter 11 case, including more than $8 million in bonuses to top executives three days before its bankruptcy filing, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. Arch executives and directors collected $29.17 million in wages, benefits, bonuses, director fees and other payments between January 2015 and this past January, according to papers filed this week in the St. Louis bankruptcy court. The payments included $8.12 million in bonuses paid out to seven executives on Jan. 8. Some $2.78 million of that amount went to Chairman and Chief Executive John Eaves. Arch sought chapter 11 protection on Jan. 11. However, a person familiar with the payments said the bonuses were awarded under longstanding, companywide incentive plans that had been approved by Arch’s board of directors. Some of the bonuses were earned over 2015, while the remainder was paid based on the company’s performance over a three-year period ended 2015.

A fight among top-ranking creditors of Energy Future Holdings Corp. has been decided in favor of banks and certain investors, marking a loss for first-lien bondholders that were fighting for a bigger share of the value flowing from the big power company's bankruptcy, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. About $90 million was at stake in the dispute, Judge Christopher Sontchi said in the decision issued on Friday. The Dallas company last year won confirmation of a chapter 11 exit plan that depends, in part, on winning the approval of federal tax authorities and state regulators for a novel deal that would convert its Oncor transmission business to a tax-advantaged structure before selling it. A decision from Texas regulators is expected by the end of the month on the sale of Oncor, which is largely owned by Energy Future's Intermediate division.

Investors who lost money when Jon Corzine's MF Global Holdings Ltd. collapsed reached a $29.83 million settlement with five underwriters that helped the futures brokerage sell bonds in the summer of 2011, less than three months before it went bankrupt, Reuters reported today. The preliminary accord resolves class action claims against Leucadia National Corp's Jefferies LLC unit, units of Bank of Montreal, Natixis SA and US Bancorp and Lebenthal & Co., according to papers filed on Friday. All denied wrongdoing. Investors led by the Virginia Retirement System and the Canadian province of Alberta accused the defendants of making false and misleading statements when they helped MF Global sell $325 million of 6.25 percent senior notes in August 2011, or were liable for misstatements in the bonds' offering materials.

A battle over 27 of the world’s most luxurious resorts spilled over into a Manhattan bankruptcy court the day after a U.K. court approved a settlement involving two former business partners — American entrepreneur Omar Amanat and Russian-born real estate developer Vladislav Doronin, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. British Virgin Islands-based Aman Resorts Group Ltd. (ARGL) filed a lawsuit in New York blaming Doronin for gutting its sole asset — namely, the holding company that owns Aman Resorts and related intellectual property — through a wrongful foreclosure action. The case, filed on Wednesday, came after ARGL agreed to be put into bankruptcy protection in the U.S. The New York lawsuit, filed in bankruptcy court against two firms controlled by Doronin, seeks to “rescind the purported sale” and restore to ARGL any earnings or other assets generated by the hotel operations during the period following the deal.

HarborView Towers has filed for chapter 11 protection, attorneys for the Council of Unit Owners at the waterfront property in Federal Hill said yesterday, the Baltimore Business Journal reported. The condo owners in the 30-story development at 100 HarborView Drive filed the petition in U.S. District Court in Baltimore on Wednesday, said Paul Sweeney, an attorney in Columbia that represents the council. One of the main reasons behind the Chapter 11 filing is judgments issued against HarborView Towers over the past couple of years stemming from a bitter legal battle by penthouse resident and developer James Ancel, who charged in a $5 million lawsuit filed in 2010 that water leaks in his unit led to mold growth and a threat to the health and safety of his family. In June 2012, Judge Evelyn Omega Cannon ruled that Ancel was due $1.2 million for the damage to his property. The judge also ordered the condo association to replace the roof system and make other repairs to the building. In a statement issued late Wednesday night, Council of Unit Owners President Reuben Mezrich cited the lawsuit and judgments as the reason for the chapter 11 filing.

Former billionaire entrepreneur Samuel Wyly is “stiffing” his creditors by attempting to shield $249 million in offshore annuities and a $12 million Texas mansion in his bankruptcy, federal regulators told a judge, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. “It is a request to enjoy a lifestyle of unfathomable wealth” while seeking the court’s protection from litigation, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said in a filing yesterday in bankruptcy court. The SEC is seeking hundreds of millions of dollars from Wyly and the estate of his late brother Charles Wyly after they lost a fraud trial in Manhattan. The Internal Revenue Service is seeking $2 billion in the same case.