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The company linked to a chemical spill that tainted the water supply of 300,000 people in West Virginia last year is offering creditors, including those damaged by the disaster, about $3 million of the cash it raked up in bankruptcy, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Some of the cash is earmarked for general creditors of Freedom Industries Inc., which went out of business and liquidated, unable to withstand damage claims stemming from the January 2014 incident. The company's chapter 11 plan payout proposal must be voted on by creditors and confirmed by a judge before being implemented. It was filed Thursday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Charleston, W.Va.

A bankruptcy judge has ordered the Roman Catholic Diocese of Gallup, N.M., its insurance carriers and lawyers representing 58 alleged sexual-abuse victims to begin mediation no later than July 15, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. Bankruptcy Judge David Thuma signed off on mediation at the request of both alleged victims and the diocese, which stretches across broad swaths of northern Arizona and New Mexico. In advance of mediation, lawyers representing the diocese, insurers and alleged victims have spent nearly a year and a half seeking out victims, assessing the value of the diocese’s assets and collecting evidence on the allegations of abuse and alleged cover-up by diocesan officials, much of which is said to have taken place decades ago. Susan Boswell, a lawyer for the Diocese of Gallup, said she hopes to arrive at a court-approved settlement with alleged victims and others well in advance of the second anniversary of the case in November.

A Minneapolis hedge fund is defending its right to buy the assets of Texas oil company WBH Energy LP at a bankruptcy auction by use of a credit bid against the protests of other creditors that want to challenge its claims on the assets, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Lawyers for Castlelake LP said in a court filing on Tuesday that the hedge fund has the right to bid the full value of its secured claim against WBH Energy at a bankruptcy auction scheduled for August. Castlelake, which invests in troubled companies and distressed debt, has agreed to serve as the stalking-horse bidder at the auction with a $25 million offer.

Bankruptcy Judge Benjamin Goldgar allowed the operating unit of Caesars Entertainment Corp. to control its bankruptcy for another month, as creditors try to reach common ground with a court-appointed investigator probing the company's pre-bankruptcy dealings, Reuters reported yesterday. Caesars Entertainment Operating Co., the largest U.S. casino operator, went bankrupt in January with $18 billion in debt. An independent examiner has been tapped to investigate whether the company's equity owners, which include Apollo Global Management LLC and TPG Capital LP, illegally transferred key assets out of creditors' reach before the bankruptcy filing. Caesars had asked to extend its exclusive right to propose a restructuring plan until Nov. 15 from May 15, a request opposed by creditors, including first-lien noteholders. Judge Goldgar extended exclusivity only until May 27, the date of Caesars' next omnibus hearing.

RadioShack has agreed to mediation with state attorneys general concerned about the electronic retailer's planned sale of customer data as part of its bankruptcy reorganization, the Associated Press reported yesterday. A RadioShack attorney told a bankruptcy judge yesterday that the mediation, which will include a consumer privacy ombudsman, will start May 14. That's after a scheduled May 11 auction for intellectual property assets including the names and addresses of millions of RadioShack customers. RadioShack is seeking to sell 8.5 million customer email addresses and 65 million complete customer name and address files, along with what it calls "transaction data."

A Chicago bankruptcy judge approved Caesars Entertainment’s plans to dismantle the former casino at the shuttered Harrah's complex in Mississippi's Tunica County, the Associated Press reported today. While Bankruptcy Judge Benjamin Goldgar authorized the dismantling on March 30, it is unclear when Caesars will begin demolition or how long it will take. Alicia Draper, a permit clerk with the Tunica County Planning Commission, said yesterday that Caesars has yet to seek a required permit. Las Vegas-based Caesars closed Harrah's in June, eliminating about 1,000 jobs at the sprawling resort that opened in 1996 as Grand Casino Tunica. Demolition was opposed by the Clarksdale-based Yazoo-Mississippi Delta Levee Board. The board collects $3.65 million yearly from a port facility lease for the barges docked in Buck Lake, an oxbow lake of the Mississippi River about 30 miles south of Memphis, Tennessee. Bankruptcy filings listed the board as Caesars' seventh-largest unsecured creditor, with $10.5 million due on a lease running through 2017. Caesars has paid some of that money since it filed for chapter 11 reorganization in January.

Corinthian Colleges Inc. on Sunday said that it is ending operations and closing its remaining 28 campuses, affecting about 16,000 students, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. The troubled operator of for-profit colleges, which has been winding down its operations, said efforts to sell the campuses or arrange teach-out partnerships with other institutions had failed, "largely as a result of federal and state regulators seeking to impose financial penalties and conditions on buyers and teach-out partners." Corinthian last year struck a deal with the Department of Education to sell off most of its more than 100 campuses and wind down the rest amid concern about its marketing practices, including claims that the company falsified data about student job placement.

Owners of General Motors Co. cars with faulty switches plan to expand a lawsuit over fallen prices June 12 after a bankruptcy court ruling that they can go forward, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. An amended suit will add plaintiffs, allege more defects and perhaps expand the claims against the carmaker, lawyer Steve Berman said on Friday at a Manhattan court conference. Berman, managing partner of Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP in Seattle, previously estimated that about 10 million customers are eligible to demand $750 each from GM, based on the bankruptcy court order, a total of $7.5 billion. An earlier suit claimed as much as $10 billion for 27 million drivers over assorted defects. Bankruptcy Judge <b>Robert Gerber</b> saved GM from billions in potential demands this month when he upheld its shield against claims tied to actions before its 2009 government bailout. A separate class action barred by his order will probably be dismissed, according to another federal judge assigned to sort and handle the cases.

Jury selection kicked off yesterday in New York state court in the criminal trial of three former leaders of defunct law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf, Reuters reported yesterday. Potential jurors began filling out questionnaires in the trial against former Dewey chair Steven Davis, ex-executive director Stephen DiCarmine and former chief financial official Joel Sanders. The three men face grand larceny, scheme to defraud and other charges. They have pleaded not guilty. Dewey, which once had more than 1,000 attorneys, filed for bankruptcy in 2012, marking the largest law firm collapse in U.S. history. The Manhattan District Attorney's office has accused Davis, DiCarmine and Sanders of hiding Dewey's true financial condition from creditors, investors and auditors as the firm was on the brink of financial ruin.  Prosecutors say they overstated revenue to hide the firm's true financial condition from creditors and investors.