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U.S. Trustee Guy Gebhardt has asked a bankruptcy judge to half a "fire sale" by Hutcheson Medical Center of a clinic it owns at Trenton, Ga., the Chattanoogan reported today. Hutcheson, continuing to make cost-cutting measures, is seeking court approval to sell the Trenton Family Practice for $350,000. Gebhardt said that the hospital had failed to show that it was receiving a fair market value in the proposed sale to the Dade County Industrial Development Authority. The trustee said at the end of July the hospital had accumulated just over $5 million in new debt since going into the bankruptcy 10 months ago. He said it appears the hospital debt is now at $6.3 million.

A company that makes tubs of protein-shake powder for bodybuilders is suing the organizers of the upcoming Mr. Olympia contest to try to block them from making major sponsorship deals with the manufacturer’s competitors, the Wall Street Journal reported today. With its lawsuit, Connecticut-based Ultimate Nutrition Inc. said that the organizers of Mr. Olympia — the top U.S. bodybuilding competition, held in Las Vegas — are advertising new sponsorship deals for companies that want their “brand front and center” at the Sept. 17-20 event. Those offers infringe on Ultimate Nutrition’s exclusive sponsorship deal, the company said. Officials for Ultimate Nutrition, which makes nutritional supplements to enhanced athletic performance and fitness, signed a $626,800 sponsorship contract in May, enabling it to become the “exclusive title sponsor” for a seventh year, according to documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Hartford. The deal meant Ultimate Nutrition will have its logo “prominently placed” on the competition’s stage, at the press conference setup and throughout a fitness expo that runs throughout the weekend. The new sponsorship opportunities “substantially undermine the prominence that the Ultimate Nutrition logo is required to be given by Olympia,” Ultimate Nutrition’s lawyers said in court papers.

Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain yesterday said Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. could make changes to its collective-bargaining agreements with union employees as the supermarket chain braces for its first swath of store closings, but he noted that some of the requested provisions must be changed to be more employee-friendly, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Judge Drain approved the company's request to avoid so-called bumping provisions that allow employees in closing stores to take jobs of more junior employees at other locations, but he ordered A&P to increase the amount of severance money it immediately pays to workers being let go. An A&P lawyer said that the company had reached a compromise on the bumping provisions with the United Food and Commercial Workers International Local 1776, which represents 1,078 A&P employees, but not ones representing the company's other 27,400 or so workers. That deal allows a one-time move where senior workers in some of the 25 closing stores can take the jobs of junior employees at locations that remain open. The store closures are set to begin later this week.

A Kentucky beverage maker is protesting a $250,000 bill that “Duck Dynasty” stars charged for appearance fees, arguing that Si Robertson (aka “Uncle Si”) was a no-show when it came to promoting an ice tea drink named after him, the Wall Street Journal BankruptcyBeat blog reported yesterday. In recently filed court papers, lawyers for the bankrupt maker of Uncle Si’s Iced Tea asked a federal judge to cancel the bill from Duck Commander Inc., the Robertson clan’s duck-call business in Louisiana that’s profiled in the hit A&E reality TV show. The beverage maker, Chinook USA LLC, has argued in a lawsuit that the Robertson family broke a contract that called for them to promote Chinook’s ice tea drink inspired by Uncle Si, who drinks from a bottomless cup of ice tea on the show. That contract violation should enable Chinook to avoid paying the appearance bill, along with a $500,000 request for royalties, according to documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Louisville, Ky. Under the five-year contract, the beverage maker agreed to pay a minimum of $1 million to the Robertsons’ business every year.

RadioShack Corp., the iconic consumer electronics chain, was driven into bankruptcy because of a takeover scheme by hedge fund Standard General LP, according to a lawsuit by a committee for creditors who say they are owed more than $500 million, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. By delaying actions that might have preserved some of the chain’s value, Standard General allegedly sought to take over RadioShack at the lowest price possible. The creditors say that turmoil at the company last year, including an October loan transaction that paved the way for the hedge fund to win control, led to RadioShack’s February bankruptcy. The lawsuit targets Standard General, its principal investment officer, company lender Wells Fargo Bank and RadioShack’s former top managers, including Joseph Magnacca, the former chief executive.

Life Partners Holdings Inc. won’t have to entertain competing bids to reorganize its assets, which include stakes in life insurance policies with a face value of $2.4 billion, until at least next month, Bloomberg News reported on Friday. The bankrupt dealer of so-called “life settlements” can retain control of its chapter 11 case for now, Bankruptcy Judge Russell Nelms ruled on Friday. The company’s bankruptcy trustee has warned that competing bids could derail any successful reorganization. Life Partners, founded in 1991, sold stakes in life insurance policies to around 22,000 individuals. Those purchasers got a payout on their investment when the insured person died. The catch is they had to pay premiums while that person still lived: the longer they lived, the more the premiums ate into — or outmatched — potential returns. Life Partners relied on an expert to estimate life expectancies, a key factor in the price investors would pay for their stake. It filed for bankruptcy in January after a Texas jury sided with the Securities and Exchange Commission, finding the expert’s death estimates were low-balled. Unwilling to pay a $46 million judgment, the Waco, Texas-based company sought court protection.

The bankruptcy judge for Baha Mar Ltd. on Friday outlined two possible middle-ground rulings on whether to dismiss the resort developer’s bankruptcy case and said he would present his decision as soon as possible, likely next month, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Carey heard arguments Friday on motions from two Chinese national companies — its lender, the Export-Import Bank of China, and its contractor, a China State Engineering Corp. subsidiary called China Construction America — that want the case decided in Bahamian court. Judge Carey presented two possible alternatives to a simple confirmation or denial during the hearing: allowing the case to continue but requiring the Bahamian court to approve the bankruptcy plan as a stipulation for its confirmation, and suspending the proceeding rather than dismissing it outright. As he considers his decision, Judge Carey urged the parties to return to negotiations.

A defense lawyer for the former chairman of the Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP law firm urged a judge to toss out financial fraud charges against his client, saying that prosecutors did nothing more than offer "scant and ambiguous" evidence that amounts to "rank speculation,” Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported on Friday. The request, made in a court filing on Thursday, comes after three months of a trial in which prosecutors have sought to convince jurors that the former chairman, Steven Davis, and two other former leaders oversaw a plot to manipulate Dewey's books to keep the firm afloat before its 2012 collapse. Testimony from about 40 witnesses has ranged from colorful anecdotes on internal firm disputes to dissections of complex accounting documents.