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The rapper 50 Cent filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday, halting a dispute over a sex tape, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The 40-year-old rapper, Curtis James Jackson III, filed for chapter 11 protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Hartford, Conn., yesterday, the same day he was supposed to appear in a New York state court to determine whether he owes punitive damages in a 2010 lawsuit filed by Lastonia Leviston, rapper Rick Ross’s ex-girlfriend, court records show. Jurors said last week that Jackson should pay $5 million to Leviston, who said that Jackson violated her privacy by posting a sex tape of her online. In his bankruptcy filing, Jackson estimates that his assets and debts, which were not itemized, are worth between $10 million and $50 million.

The trustee liquidating Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s brokerage unit yesterday asked a federal bankruptcy judge for permission to distribute another $1.89 billion to unsecured creditors, boosting their total recovery to $7.78 billion, Reuters reported yesterday. Trustee James Giddens said that the creditors will have recouped 35 cents on the dollar, up from 27 cents so far, if the proposed third payout wins approval from Bankruptcy Judge Shelley Chapman at an August 4 hearing in Manhattan. Roughly 111,000 former customers of the brokerage have already been paid more than $106 billion, and senior creditors have also been paid in full.

Former top executives at defunct law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf, including chairman Steven Davis, conspired to falsify income statements in an attempt to forestall its collapse in 2012, the firm's former finance director testified yesterday, Reuters reported. Francis Canellas, a key prosecutorial witness at the criminal trial of Davis, executive director Stephen DiCarmine and chief financial officer Joel Sanders, said all three were aware of improper accounting tricks intended to fool auditors about Dewey's true financial state. "I participated and directed others to make false accounting entries" from 2008 to 2011, Canellas testified in state court in Manhattan. In March 2014, he pleaded guilty to grand larceny as part of a cooperation agreement with the Manhattan district attorney's office. In 2012, Dewey became the largest law firm in U.S. history to file for bankruptcy due to crushing debt and a stream of partner departures.

With an eye towards the Christmas shopping season, lawyers for Family Christian Stores and its creditors approved a plan that could put the nation's largest chain of Christian book and gift stores under new ownership by mid-August, MLive.com reported on Friday. Family Christian's creditors will decide by Aug. 7 whether to approve a transfer to new owners who have pledged to continue operations, according to a plan approved on Friday by Bankruptcy Judge John Gregg. Brad Baldwin, a lawyer for Family Christian, said that they need to emerge from chapter 11 protection by mid-August so the company can prepare their Christmas catalogs and order holiday inventory for the chain's 266 stores in 36 states.

The developer of the unfinished $3.5 billion Baha Mar mega resort in the Bahamas has accused China Construction America of cutting power to the work site, inflating expenses and trying to steal documents stuffed in suitcases, U.S. court filings show, Reuters reported yesterday. China Construction America, a unit of China State Construction Engineering Corp Ltd, denied the allegations, saying on Friday that the developer is trying to deflect attention from its own mismanagement of the troubled project. Baha Mar Ltd, the project's developer, detailed its allegations in court filings on Thursday as part of its bankruptcy case. The developer's filings also raised the prospect of fraud by the Chinese, saying that money may have been spent on groceries and cosmetics. Baha Mar has been plagued by delays and ran out of money, forcing the developer to file for bankruptcy protection in a Delaware court on June 29. The project, which is to feature a Las Vegas-style casino and more than 2,000 hotel rooms, is being built by CCA and has been largely financed with a $2.45 billion loan from the Export Import Bank of China.

As the criminal trial over the demise of Dewey & LeBoeuf enters its seventh week, only a third of the expected 79 prosecution witnesses have testified, and a key cooperator has yet to take the stand, the American Lawyer reported today. Over 22 days, prosecutors have presented witnesses and exhibits that they hope will help convince jurors that ex-Dewey chair Steven Davis, former executive director Stephen DiCarmine and former CFO Joel Sanders used illegal accounting tricks to defraud their bank lenders and investors. Davis, DiCarmine and Sanders stand accused of deceiving bank lenders about Dewey’s true finances between late 2008 and early 2012, when the firm finally collapsed. Prosecutors also claim that they duped 13 insurance companies into investing in a $150 million bond issued by the firm in April 2010. Each defendant faces years in prison if convicted.

Signal International LLC filed for chapter 11 protection yesterday to deal with lawsuits accusing it of labor trafficking involving citizens of India recruited to work in the U.S., the Wall Street Journal reported today. A Gulf Coast marine services operator, the company was hit earlier this year with a $14 million damages award in a case brought by five people who said they paid $10,000 to $20,000 for jobs they were told would turn into permanent residency in the U.S. Instead, they were forced to live in guarded labor camps under allegedly poor conditions, according to the suits they brought. A jury found for the Indian citizens, and in May a federal court entered judgment against Signal. Trial was supposed to start July 20 in the next case, but the bankruptcy filing in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., halts continued litigation. Signals said that it is trying to implement a deal in chapter 11 that will resolve the litigation and save its business. Signal faces 11 similar lawsuits involving 227 people recruited from India under allegedly illegal conditions, lured by alleged false promises to work as welders, pipe fitters and in other positions under the U.S. government’s H-2B guest worker program.

Bankrupt gunmaker Colt Holdings received court approval on Friday for a new financing package that empowers its bondholders at the expense of its private equity owner, Reuters reported yesterday. Colt was cleared to borrow up to $75 million, although the company will only get $20 million in cash, with the remainder used to refinance existing loans. The package will incorporate two previously approved interim loans. Sales of the company's guns and sports rifles have dropped sharply in the past year. Once best known for the revolvers pioneered by 19th-century founder Samuel Colt, the company filed for bankruptcy in June without enough money to meet payroll. The loan was provided by an ad hoc committee of the company's bondholders over the objection of the private equity firm that controls Colt, Sciens Capital Management.

A U.S. federal judge on Friday dismissed a lawsuit by former Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. employees seeking to hold onetime Chief Executive Richard Fuld liable for their retirement plan losses as the Wall Street bank plunged into its 2008 bankruptcy, Reuters reported on Friday. U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan rejected claims that Fuld breached an obligation to share what he knew about Lehman's fast-deteriorating finances with officials who oversaw the plan, where Lehman stock was an investment option. The judge also rejected claims that those officials breached their fiduciary duty to employees by letting them invest in Lehman stock, resulting in millions of dollars of losses.

Dune Energy Inc. yesterday asked a Texas bankruptcy judge to overlook objections from its creditors and approve the sale of most of its assets to White Marlin Oil and Gas Co. and Trimont Energy LLC, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. But while Dune's unsecured creditors’ committee pressed the judge not to approve the sale, the company worked with a handful of other creditors who had objections, and resolved them. Exterran Energy Solutions L.P. withdrew its objection in exchange for a $100,000 payment from Trimont. Another objection, from Emerald Land Corporation, was also resolved prior to yesterday’s hearing.