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A Manhattan jury began deliberations yesterday in the criminal trial of three former law firm executives accused of engaging in account fraud to hide the failing finances of defunct Dewey & LeBoeuf, Reuters reported yesterday. Former Dewey chairman Steven Davis, former executive director Stephen DiCarmine and former chief financial officer Joel Sanders face a total of 53 charges, with the top count of grand larceny carrying a maximum sentence of 25 years. Acting Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Robert Stolz instructed the jury yesterday following the remainder of the prosecution's closing arguments. Formed in 2007 by the merger of Dewey Ballantine LLP and LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene, & MacRae LLP, the combined firm quickly faced financial trouble in the form of the high compensation guarantees it had made to retain and recruit star partners. Those commitments became increasingly untenable when the financial crisis hit in 2008. Dewey, which employed more than 1,000 lawyers at the time of its merger, filed for bankruptcy in 2012.

Lawyers for the former RadioShack said Wednesday the defunct electronics retailer had resolved about a dozen objections to its liquidation plan and will return to a bankruptcy courtroom today to seek a judge's order finalizing the proposal, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. The former RadioShack also announced an agreement with the U.S. Justice Department over a $72 million tax bill, appearing to clear a major hurdle. Lawyers for both sides asked Judge Brendan Shannon to sign off on the liquidation plan, which distributes proceeds from the company's liquidation to its creditors. But the deal is subject to a lengthy government approval process. Christopher Williamson, a lawyer for the Justice Department, called the agreement announced yesterday "just the first step in the process."

General Motor Co. is said to be settling a criminal probe by the U.S. Justice Department for $900 million over the ignition switch flaw that has bogged down Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra in recalls and investigations since almost Day 1 of her tenure, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The settlement will be part of a deferred prosecution agreement. The agreement, which may be announced today, will allow the U.S. to monitor the automaker for three years. The U.S. will say that GM failed to obey federal laws requiring prompt disclosure of safety problems, and no individuals will be charged. GM will also face a charge of wire fraud.

An Arch Coal Inc. creditor sued a group of lenders it says is seeking to block a plan to swap the struggling miner’s existing bonds for new securities with longer maturities, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. GSO Special Situations Master Fund LP, a New York-based investment fund that holds some of Arch’s unsecured notes, accused the defendants of making “improper and legally unsupportable efforts” to block the swap. The deadline for the exchange is Sept. 23. A group of senior lenders — including Oaktree Capital Group LLC, Archview Investment Group and Caspian Capital, which claim to own a majority of Arch’s $1.9 billion in bank loans — have moved to block the deal on concern that it would harm the value of the higher-ranking debt they hold. The lenders said that the bondholders agreeing to the swap would receive preferential treatment, violating provisions of the loan pact.

A bankruptcy judge handed down an interim order telling Primera Energy owner Brian Alfaro "not to dispose of any assets" until a final decision has been made from a five-day hearing spread over three weeks time, the San Antonio Business Journal reported today. Bankruptcy Judge Craig Gargotta handed down the interim order yesterday following almost five full days of testimony that originally started back on Friday, Aug. 28. More than two dozen angry Primera Energy investors are asking Gargotta for an injunction preventing the San Antonio businessman from destroying records and disposing of personal assets. The investors claim that they were milked out of millions of dollars through fraud and deceptive trade practices, but Alfaro denies the allegations. Judge Gargotta ordered that both sides of the case submit their findings of fact, conclusions of law and case citations to his court by 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 30.

Customers battling Boomerang Systems Inc. over its robotic parking valet system are threatening to derail the company's chapter 11 restructuring, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. The owners of parking garages in Illinois and Kansas that were supposed to feature Boomerang's RoboticValet system on Monday filed papers urging a bankruptcy judge to either convert the company's chapter 11 restructuring to a liquidation or to hand control of the company to a trustee. "There is no chance the debtors rehabilitate as a viable entity while providing an equitable return to creditors," the garage owners said in the filing.

USA Discounters Ltd., a retailer that has been accused of scamming U.S. service members, is defending its decision to file for chapter 11 in Delaware despite having roots elsewhere, the Wall Street Journal Bankruptcy Beat blog reported yesterday. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Sontchi ordered the retailer to appear at a hearing on Friday to defend its filing in the Wilmington, Del., court over “some other appropriate venue.” USA Discounters has its headquarters in Norfolk, Va., and faces litigation related to its business practices in Colorado, two possible venues that Judge Sontchi’s order cited. But the company says that there is no dispute that its chapter 11 filing, made last month, complies with bankruptcy laws, as two of the three entities that filed were incorporated in Delaware.

Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Carey yesterday largely dismissed the chapter 11 case of Baha Mar Ltd., saying that he “perceived no greater good” would come from allowing the case to continue in the U.S., the Wall Street Journal reported today. Judge Carey said in his opinion that the bankruptcy filing of Baha Mar, which is the owner and developer of a stalled $3.5 billion resort in the Bahamas, “is truly an international case” and acknowledged the deep economic interest of the Bahamian government in the resort. At the crux of his decision, Judge Carey said, was a finding earlier this summer by Justice Ian Winder of the Supreme Court of the Bahamas that the project’s stakeholders expected that insolvency proceedings would take place in the Bahamas. Judge Carey said that he agreed and was dismissing the U.S. case for this reason. That reasoning didn’t, however, extend to one entity that Baha Mar had placed in bankruptcy, called Northshore Mainland Services Inc. This company is incorporated in Florida and manages U.S. operations. Creditors of that entity couldn’t have expected that it file for bankruptcy outside of the U.S., Judge Carey said, and permitted only that case to continue.

The battle is over between the maker of Ultimate Nutrition protein-shake powder and the organizers of country’s largest bodybuilding competition, which starts on Thursday in Las Vegas, who fought over advertising banners that would hang at the entrance to the event, the Wall Street Journal reported today. A new deal between the organizers of the Mr. Olympia contest and Connecticut-based Ultimate Nutrition Inc., which makes workout supplements, has prompted the manufacturer to drop its complaint that the banner advertisements could unfairly highlight the company’s competitors. Earlier this year, Ultimate Nutrition paid to become the “exclusive title sponsor” to the event, which is expected to draw more than 50,000 people. The two sides made peace after Mr. Olympia organizers offered “certain other advertising and promotional opportunities” to Ultimate Nutrition, according to documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Hartford. The deal was approved by Judge Ann Nevins on Friday.

Japanese prosecutors have filed charges against Mark Karpeles, the former head of defunct bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, accusing him of stealing $2.7 million of clients' money, Reuters reported. The French-born Karpeles was arrested last month in connection with the disappearance of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of the virtual currency. The charges, which were filed on Friday, said that Karpeles embezzled a total of 321 million yen ($2.66 million) by transferring clients' funds deposited at Mt.Gox's bank account to other accounts. Karpeles was suspected of falsifying data on the outstanding balance of the exchange, at one point the world's largest hub for trading the digital currency, Japanese media reported at the time of his arrest.