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Harbinger Capital Partners, the hedge fund firm run by Philip Falcone, filed a new lawsuit accusing satellite TV company Dish Network Corp. and its chairman, Charles Ergen, of illegally trying to strip it of control of wireless company LightSquared during its bankruptcy, Reuters reported yesterday. The lawsuit seeks at least $1.5 billion of damages, which Harbinger wants tripled. It alleges civil violations of the federal Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). In the complaint, the defendants were accused of fraudulently scheming to strip Harbinger of its LightSquared equity, and ability to make key decisions during the bankruptcy proceedings, by amassing a large amount of LightSquared debt. The case is Harbinger Capital Partners LLC, et al. v. Ergen, et al., U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 15-05722. 

Patriot Coal wants a bankruptcy judge's permission to reject the company's collective bargaining agreement with union miners and change retirees' health care benefits, The Associated Press reported today. Patriot wrote that it would otherwise run out of cash and have to liquidate in a matter of weeks. The move would be necessary, according to Patriot, to close on a proposed partial sale to Blackhawk Mining LLC. Otherwise, the United Mine Workers of America would need to reach collective bargaining terms with Blackhawk, which doesn't want to contribute to the pension plan.

The bankruptcy of Caesars Entertainment Corp.'s debt-heavy subsidiary has racked up nearly $47 million in professional fees and expenses in about 4 1/2 months, The Associated Press reported today. The Associated Press reviewed billings from 18 law firms, financial advisers, consultants and the casino company's creditors between Jan. 15 and May 31, including one from a law firm that noted it cost $16,367 to prepare its own bill. Another firm's invoice includes billing for a paralegal who earned $133,490 in that time. And that's with discounts, in several cases. In filing for bankruptcy in mid-January, Caesars Entertainment Operating Co. has been trying to shed about $10 billion of its $18.4 billion in debt. But the complex case has already involved fights over picking a court, the timing of its filing, brokering a deal with different creditors and fending off litigation from some of them at the same time. The company is due in bankruptcy court today for what could be a pivotal ruling that would either halt lawsuits against the subsidiary's parent company, Caesars Entertainment Corp., or let the litigation proceed, potentially imperiling that company's finances, too.

Two groups of Samson Resources Corp.’s creditors are competing to raise capital to back their different restructuring proposals before an Aug. 15 bond payment deadline, Bloomberg reported yesterday. The KKR & Co.-owned natural gas producer is unlikely to make a $110 million coupon payment due on its unsecured notes next month without a restructuring deal in place. Silver Point Capital LP and Cerberus Capital Management LP, who are negotiating for holders of $1 billion of second-lien term loans maturing in September 2018, are seeking a loan that will finance operations during a bankruptcy, said two of the people. The group hired investment bank Houlihan Lokey Inc. and law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher as advisers. Investors in the natural gas producer’s $2.25 billion of 9.75 percent senior unsecured notes due February 2020, led by Blackstone Group LP’s credit unit GSO Capital Partners, Oaktree Capital Group LP and Centerbridge Partners, are looking for cash to fund an out-of-court restructuring. The financing  is key to getting Tulsa, Okla.-based Samson to sign on to one of the restructuring plans. Samson, which produces oil and natural gas from onshore shale formations, has been struggling to service its debt since energy prices slumped a year ago.

A key prosecution witness in the Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP trial said that he never discussed improper accounting practices with Dewey’s former chairman, Steven Davis, one of three defendants accused by the Manhattan district attorney’s office of orchestrating a financial fraud at the now-defunct law firm, The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. The statements came during cross-examination of Dewey’s former finance director, Francis Canellas, who is on the stand as one of the government’s star witnesses. On cross-examination, an attorney for Davis solicited a series of answers aimed at distancing his client from the allegations. Upon questioning, Canellas told jurors that Davis had not instructed him to to make an improper accounting adjustment and that he had never told the chairman such adjustments were being made. Davis is accused, along with the firm’s then-CFO and former executive director, of hiding the true nature of Dewey’s finances from its banks, auditors and creditors. The three deny wrongdoing.

The creditors committee in the bankruptcy of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has asked a judge to give clergy sex abuse victims more time to file claims, The Associated Press reported on Friday. Aug. 3 is the current deadline but the committee wants that pushed back to May 25, 2016, which would align with the deadline the Legislature has set for victims to file abuse lawsuits. In a court filing, the committee notes that the bankruptcy judge has expressed concerns about the church's efforts to publicize the deadline. A hearing on the request has been scheduled for July 30. 

There is pain across the nation’s coal fields, but in West Virginia, the disruption is particularly acute because mines are closing almost every month, The New York Times reported Friday. Sawmills that provide wooden support beams for the tunnels are laying off workers, and diners are putting up signs asking their customers to pray for the miners. The coal industry, long the heart that pumped the area’s economy, is in deep trouble, buffeted by power plants switching to cheap natural gas, crippling debt, mounting foreign competition and increasingly strict regulations to limit greenhouse gases and toxic emissions like mercury. Since January, six domestic coal producers have filed for bankruptcy, including Patriot Coal, which applied for chapter 11 for the second time. The decline has taken a heavy toll in Wayne County and the surrounding area in West Virginia and Kentucky, where roughly one in three of the nation’s 80,000 coal miners work. They are at the center of a layoff epidemic that has reduced their numbers by roughly 5,000 annually over the last four years in the two states alone. And the wave of layoffs is spreading, with Murray Energy, one of the nation’s largest coal producers, recently announcing it would cut its work force in Ohio and Illinois, as well as West Virginia, by more than 1,800 miners.

Hammered by weak oil and gas prices, two more Houston energy companies filed for bankruptcy on Wednesday while another coal producer sought chapter 11 protection after falling victim to coal's bleak market, Reuters reported on Friday. Milagro Oil & Gas Inc. filed with a plan to swap assets for $120 million in cash and equity from Houston-based White Oak Resources VI, which acquires and operates oil and gas properties in the Gulf Coast region of Texas and Louisiana.

In the years since Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP’s collapse, law firms have cut their reliance on bank loans and leaned more heavily on their partners for cash in times of need, The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. The change isn’t solely a reaction to Dewey’s high-profile flameout in May 2012, but some law firm leaders say watching Dewey’s mistakes — on display during the criminal trial of three former Dewey leaders — led them to reassess the way they run their operations. Compared with their corporate clients, law firms are relatively simple businesses. Cash comes in from clients and is used to pay expenses, including rent and employee salaries. In theory, partners, as joint owners in the business, split what is left at year-end. A Citi survey of 130 law firms found average bank debt per equity partner fell to $49,700 in 2014 from $77,600 in 2008. Wells Fargo & Co. reports that among about 60 of the nation’s highest-grossing law firms, average debt declined to $8.7 million in 2014 from $15.7 million per firm in 2008.