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The U.S. Trustee for Georgia's Region 21 is asking that the bankruptcy filed by Hutcheson Medical Center be dismissed, saying that the condition of the Fort Oglethorpe medical facility is too far gone to be salvaged, The Chattanoogan reported today. U.S. Trustee Guy G. Gebhardt said that HMC has picked up over $5 million in new debts since filing for bankruptcy. He said patient care is at risk at the facility, and asked for an expedited hearing and that the case be dismissed. Farrell Hayes, president and CEO of Hutcheson Medical Center, said, “Hutcheson’s medical staff and the patients themselves will be the first to tell you that our patient care fully meets the needs of this region and places the safety and comfort of our patients front and center.

One of the final executives charged in the chemical spill that contaminated the drinking water supply in Charleston, W.Va., and several surrounding counties has pleaded guilty, the Associated Press reported yesterday. During a hearing in federal court in Charleston yesterday, former Freedom Industries executive Dennis Farrell pleaded guilty in front of Judge Thomas Johnston. The plea deal calls for a sentence of 30 days to two years in prison, as well as a fine up to $200,000. He's set to be sentenced on Dec. 14. The bankrupt company and four ex-officials have already pleaded guilty to pollution charges.

After a flurry of negotiations, a bankruptcy judge yesterday said that he would authorize Patriot Coal Corp.'s creditors to begin voting on the company's plan to pay them, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Bankruptcy Judge Keith Phillips said that he would approve an outline of Patriot's chapter 11 plan. At the heart of the plan is the sale of Patriot's mines to new owners. Before Tuesday's hearing, creditors had lined up to criticize what they said were gaping holes in the payment plan, including how much they could expect to be paid, the terms of new debt the company hopes to issue and the scope of liability releases.

Arch Coal Inc. is seeking a compromise with lenders opposing a debt-swap deal that would help the struggling coal miner avoid a bankruptcy filing, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Holders of the coal miner’s $1.9 billion loan may be offered better terms as an incentive to drop their opposition to a proposal to swap as much as $2.38 billion of junior-ranking borrowings for new senior obligations. The opposing group, claiming to represent the majority of senior creditors, is demanding to be paid a comparable yield on a new loan the company is seeking as part of the exchange, Arch Coal said in a July 29 statement. The lenders say that new creditors would receive preferential treatment over existing investors, which would violate provisions of the loan pact.

Apollo Global Management LLC, one of the owners of Caesars Entertainment Corp., received an ultimatum from creditors who are the staunchest opponents of the casino operator’s bankruptcy plan, demanding that the private-equity firm surrender control of the still-solvent parent company to them, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The opponents, junior bondholders of Caesars’ bankrupt unit, made their demand in a meeting this month. Through the parent, creditors would then take charge of several profitable units outside of the bankruptcy case. In exchange, the creditor group would withdraw the pile of lawsuits it has filed related to the bankruptcy. Apollo rejected the offer, but the two sides are continuing negotiations. The second-lien group includes Appaloosa Management, Oaktree Capital Group LLC and Tennenbaum Capital Partners, according to a February court filing. 

With just one full week remaining before New York prosecutors rest their case in the Dewey & LeBoeuf criminal trial, the state’s final cooperating witness faced questioning yesterday from a defense lawyer representing the now-defunct firm’s ex-CFO, Joel Sanders, the American Lawyer reported today. In her third day on the stand, former Dewey & LeBoeuf director of revenue support Dianne Cascino, looking at times serious and on the verge of tears, told jurors of false book entries made to financial records. Andrew Frisch, an attorney for Sanders with his own New York boutique, highlighted how Cascino changed her tune in her responses to prosecutors before and after she signed a plea agreement in exchange for leniency, and attempted to put some distance between his client and the witness's damaging testimony. Cascino, who technically reported to Sanders, offered some of the most intensive and evidence-heavy testimony of the past three months. Cascino testified last week that she reversed book entries for millions of dollars of client disbursements that had been written off, keeping them on Dewey's books in order to inflate the firm's accounts receivable. Cascino earlier testified that the practice of reversing write-offs began in January 2009 at Canellas' behest.

The opening of the $3.5 billion Baha Mar mega-resort in the Bahamas is expected to be delayed beyond the start of the Christmas season, with the developer deep in an escalating legal battle with the Chinese companies that are providing most of the finance and construction work, Reuters reported yesterday. Even if construction on the unfinished resort resumed this month, there is little chance the project could be completed by mid-December, the start of the high season for Bahamas resorts, according to local contractors who have worked on the project. Baha Mar missed a March 27 opening because of construction delays and dwindling cash. Missing the high season, when resorts charge premium prices, would further hurt its finances. Sarkis Izmirlian, whose Baha Mar Ltd is developer of the project, is trying to restructure the project's finances in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware. But the Bahamian government, along with China's Export Import Bank and China Construction America (CCA), are trying to block that move as they initiate a separate liquidation proceeding in Nassau. China ExIm has bankrolled most of the project and CCA is the main contractor.

A judge on Monday held off ruling on whether Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. can modify parts of its collective-bargaining agreements (CBAs) with unions, something the grocer has indicated would be the first step toward a more drastic overhaul of the CBAs, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain met with lawyers for the company and the unions after hearing testimony yesterday, and he later said that they should negotiate more and come back to court on Wednesday with a compromise. A&P wants to change a provision in the contracts that allows senior employees in stores that are closing to take the jobs of lower-paid employees with less seniority at other locations. The other change would cut the amount of severance pay A&P has to immediately pay to employees being laid off.

A judge on Friday approved a restructuring plan for Altegrity Inc., the company that gained notoriety when one of its units vetted former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Bankruptcy Judge Laurie Selber Silverstein approved the plan after receiving assurance that all parties have been properly notified about a settlement between Altegrity and the U.S. government, in which both sides agreed to drop certain claims against one another in the bankruptcy case. Government probes into Altegrity not related to the bankruptcy can still continue, including any potential False Claims Act claims against former Altegrity officials. Debevoise & Plimpton LLP's Natasha Labovitz, a lawyer for Altegrity, said the many complications in the case forced the company to compromise on a restructuring plan that all parties supported. The company satisfied several plan objections in the days before the hearing, including the one with the government.

Testifying in a Manhattan courtroom for a second straight day, former Dewey & LeBoeuf revenue support director Dianne Cascino told jurors yesterday that she had faced frequent questions at the firm about accounting entries she used to artificially inflate the firm’s bottom line, the American Lawyer reported today. Those entries, Cascino testified earlier, included millions of dollars of client disbursements that had been written off, but that she reversed in order to keep them on the firm’s books. Cascino is a cooperating witness in the Manhattan district attorney’s criminal case against three of Dewey’s former leaders, who are charged with deceiving bank lenders and investors about the firm’s shaky finances before it collapsed in 2012.