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Coal miner Alpha Natural Resources Inc. is seeking to shed retiree benefits as efforts to come up with a restructuring plan take longer than expected, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Alpha in court papers on Tuesday asked a bankruptcy judge to let it terminate the medical, life insurance and other benefits it provides to about 4,580 non-union retirees or their spouses. The plans also potentially cover 6,670 active, non-union employees, although they wouldn't receive the benefits until their retirement. The benefits slated for termination don't include pensions. Alpha said that it in cutting the benefits by the end of the year, it hopes to escape about $125 million in future obligations. Maintaining the benefits cost the company about $2.7 million last year and about $2.8 million so far this year, court papers show.

After 18 months in bankruptcy, Energy Future Holdings started what it hopes will be the final phase of its reorganization yesterday, pushing for approval of its fourth major restructuring proposal, Bloomberg News reported. The Dallas-based power provider is asking Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Sontchi to sign off on a deal that splits it in half. If Energy Future succeeds, it could mean a solution to problems that grew out of a record, $48 billion leveraged buyout, and end a drawn-out bankruptcy where creditors have already rejected three attempts to reorganize. The deal would create a power distribution unit, including Oncor, Texas’s biggest electric-transmission system, and a power generating unit. Each half would be owned by separate groups of creditors including big name hedge funds specializing in distressed debt. The factions fought over terms for more than a year before reaching a deal with help from Hunt Consolidated, a Dallas-based oil and gas, real estate and power company.

Rare earths supplier Molycorp Inc. said it has filed a joint plan to emerge from chapter 11 protection, Reuters reported yesterday. The plan, which was filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware yesterday, has proposed an exit of chapter 11 through a stand-alone reorganization or a sale of substantially all of its assets, the company said in a statement. The Greenwood, Colo.-based company said that it has the backing of its largest pre-petition secured creditor and its post-petition lender and investment funds managed by Oaktree Capital Management. The company filed for chapter 11 protection in June, along with its North American subsidiaries to restructure $1.7 billion of debt in its U.S. and Canadian operations.

Retailer American Apparel Inc. received a bankruptcy court’s final approval to tap its $90 million bankruptcy financing package provided by Standard General and other investors after the company was able to resolve a number of objections from unsecured creditors, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Bankruptcy Judge Brendan Linehan Shannon approved the financing during a hearing yesterday “given the substantial negotiations” that resulted in a number of modifications to the terms of the financing. The financing provides $30 million in fresh capital for American Apparel while refinancing $60 million in debt owed to Standard General and other investors before the bankruptcy filing.

Caesars Entertainment Operating Co. secured a bankruptcy judge’s permission to sell its Harrah’s Tunica Hotel & Casino in Mississippi as part of its chapter 11 restructuring, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Bankruptcy Judge A. Benjamin Goldgar yesterday signed off on the shuttered casino’s sale, for $3 million, to TJM Properties. Caesars canceled last week’s auction for the property after no rival bidders stepped forward to challenge TJM Properties’ offer. The buyer, which owns hotels and senior-living properties, acquired another closed casino, the Atlantic Club Hotel & Casino in Atlantic City, N.J., for $13.5 million last year.

Junior creditors of Caesars Entertainment launched a fresh attack against a top U.S. restructuring attorney, alleging that he misled a judge and asking that the law firm be disqualified from parts of the casino group's bankruptcy case, Reuters reported yesterday. Jones Day, the junior bondholders' law firm, asked the court to reconsider a May order that allowed the bankrupt unit of Caesars Entertainment Corp to hire Kirkland, led by James Sprayregen. The dispute between two of the best-known law firms in corporate restructuring adds another layer of feuding to Caesars' $18 billion bankruptcy, which involves the biggest U.S. private equity and hedge fund firms. In a new court filing on Friday, Jones Day revealed evidence from a board meeting of the operating unit that it says shows testimony by Sprayregen at a trial over Kirkland's hiring by Caesars was incomplete and misleading. Kirkland & Ellis denied the allegation and said that it was without merit. Jones Day initially filed a redacted version of the motion last week, but Bankruptcy Judge Benjamin Goldgar in Chicago rejected that for procedural reasons.

Licensees of Life Partners Holdings Inc. were sued for $91 million over their roles in an alleged fraud that earned them “exorbitant” commissions on the sale of life settlement investments while concealing when people were expected to die, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The lawsuit filed on Wednesday in Fort Worth, Texas comes as part of the bankruptcy of Life Partners, an owner of $2.4 billion in life insurance policies. The company dealt in life settlements, or “death bonds” — buying life insurance policies from ill or elderly people in need of fast cash and reselling them to retail investors promised high returns when the holder died, and the policy’s benefit was paid out. The suit was brought by a trustee overseeing the wind-down. He seeks to recover $91 million in commissions for investors it says were harmed. The licensees, named in the suit, were employed by Life Partners, he said.

A judge has rejected an unusual attempt by junior bondholders of Caesars Entertainment's bankrupt operating unit to disqualify law firm Kirkland & Ellis from leading the casino group's $18 billion chapter 11 restructuring, Reuters reported yesterday. Jones Day, the junior bondholders' law firm, had asked the court to reconsider a May order that allowed the bankrupt unit of Caesars Entertainment Corp. to hire Kirkland’s James Sprayregen. The fresh motion in the contentious bankruptcy case accused Sprayregen of giving misleading court testimony earlier this year regarding pre-bankruptcy work Kirkland handled for Caesars. Jones said that it unearthed new evidence including minutes from a 2014 board meeting. Jones Day's heavily redacted filing did not disclose the meeting minutes. In his denial to consider the motion at a Nov. 18 hearing, Bankruptcy Judge Benjamin Goldgar said Jones Day should have requested court permission before filing such a restricted document. He said they could ask to refile the motion.