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A lawyer for LightSquared yesterday said that the company will set aside $400 million to give certain bankruptcy lenders, including Dish Network Corp. Chairman Charles Ergen, the option to take a portion of their repayments in cash instead of notes, Reuters reported yesterday. The bankrupt wireless venture, opening a week-long trial seeking a judge's approval of its debt restructuring plan, is looking to end one of the most litigious bankruptcies of recent years. LightSquared, owned by Phil Falcone's Harbinger Capital Partners, was planning to build a massive wireless network when it was forced to file for bankruptcy in May 2012, after the Federal Communications Commission revoked its spectrum license over potential GPS interference. Since then, no fewer than seven restructuring proposals have failed amid creditor fights over the treatment of debt and the underlying value of LightSquared's spectrum. To end its bankruptcy, LightSquared must convince Bankruptcy Judge Shelley Chapman that its latest plan treats creditors fairly. The plan would let Harbinger retain some equity but cede operational control, transfer a chunk of equity to lenders Fortress Investment Group and Centerbridge Partners, and repay other lenders, including Ergen, via notes.

In a blow to the Archdiocese of Milwaukee in its ongoing bankruptcy, a federal appeals court yesterday put a $60 million cemetery trust fund back in play to potentially settle claims related to sexual abuse by priests, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported today. The ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit said that the church cannot use the First Amendment or a 1993 law aimed at protecting religious freedom to shield the funds. The court also said the judge who put the money off limits, U.S. District Judge Rudolph Randa, should have disclosed the fact his parents and other relatives are buried in a cemetery maintained by the trust fund. The court remanded the case to a different district judge.

A federal judge on Friday said the U.S. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp's lawsuit accusing billionaire Ira Rennert's Renco Group Inc. of trying to evade pension obligations of its RG Steel unit should go to trial, Reuters reported on Friday. U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan in Manhattan rejected requests by both sides to decide the case in their favor. He scheduled a trial for July 6. The PBGC had sued Renco in January 2013 for $97 million, claiming that it sold a 24.5 percent RG stake to private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management LP mainly to escape the steelmaker's pension plans, which were underfunded by $70 million. The PBGC said that it had been preparing on Jan. 13, 2012 to terminate RG's pension plans, but agreed not to after Renco assured it would not imminently cut its ownership stake to below 80 percent, the level at which it would retain the pension liabilities. Instead, the PBGC said Renco did just that four days later when it sold a stake to Cerberus, saying the transaction would bolster RG's finances. The steelmaker ultimately filed for bankruptcy in May 2012, and the PBGC took responsibility for its pension plans six months later.

U.S. investment firm Huxley Capital Corp filed a lawsuit on Thursday in a New York court against Brazilian construction group OAS SA, alleging the debt-laden company is hiding assets from creditors at two valuable subsidiaries, Reuters reported yesterday. The defendants in the lawsuit, filed in Manhattan federal court, are OAS and subsidiaries Construtora OAS SA, OAS Investimentos SA, OAS Infraestrutura SA and OAS Engenharia e Construção SA, court documents showed. Huxley alleged that OAS transferred assets from Construtora OAS and OAS Investimentos to protect them from bondholders. Huxley owns debt issued by two of the subsidiaries, which he said might prove unable to make good on their obligations because of the asset transfers. The transfers occurred as OAS plunged into "disarray" after the company was named in a corruption probe in Brazil that subsequently cut access to financing, the lawsuit said.

LightSquared’s path toward exiting bankruptcy will reach a key milestone on Monday as scheduled, despite the recent introduction of a hedge-fund firm’s rival exit plan that threatened to once again disrupt the contentious chapter 11 case, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Bankruptcy Judge Shelley Chapman said on Wednesday that she will begin hearing evidence on Monday morning from LightSquared on why its current restructuring plan should be confirmed by the court. The hearings are expected to last the majority of the week and possibly spill into the next. Last week, Solus Alternative Asset Management LP introduced its own proposal for the company’s future. The firm said that its plan to pump $2 billion into Philip Falcone’s wireless venture is better than the one the company has presented, which involves little new money and puts the company in the hands of investors including Centerbridge Partners LP and Fortress Investment Group LLC.

The bankruptcy case for landmark Washington, D.C., watering hole Hawk ‘n’ Dove ended abruptly on Wednesday with a settlement between the bar’s owners and a group led by D.C. restaurateur Xavier Cervera, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. The judge overseeing the bankruptcy has dismissed the case at the owners’ request. Details about the settlement between Cervera, who sold Hawk ‘n’ Dove and eight other restaurants in 2012, and the investors who bought them weren’t disclosed. Hawk ‘n’ Dove and eight other restaurants filed for bankruptcy nearly a year ago — March 28, 2014 — as their owners were facing a deadline to make a payment Xavier Cervera and his partners. As part of the 2012 sale, Cervera and the other sellers agreed to take $4.5 million upfront and another roughly $9.7 million in smaller payments made over time, according to documents filed bankruptcy court.

Lehman Brothers and the New York Giants have settled their long-running dispute over a soured interest-rate swap tied to the financing of the football team’s stadium, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Lehman sued Giants Stadium LLC in 2013, claiming it was owed $100 million under the swap. Giants Stadium LLC was set up by the team’s owners, the Mara and Tisch families, to fund the construction of MetLife Stadium. To finance the stadium, the Giants unit issued $650 million in bonds, the bulk of which were underwritten by Lehman. The Giants entered an interest-rate swap agreement with the bank. Lehman offered a lower interest rate to the Giants to beat out Goldman Sachs Group Inc. for the business. But in September 2008, Lehman collapsed, causing it to default on the deal and apparently creating a loss for the Giants. The Giants eventually filed a $301.8 million claim against the investment bank and then sold the claim to Seth Klarman’s Baupost Group hedge fund, a firm which specializes in distressed debt investments. Lehman’s lawsuit alleged that Baupost and Giants Stadium then “devised a plan to ratchet up the pressure on Lehman to settle at an unreasonable level” by nearly doubling the claim against Lehman and its derivatives subsidiary to $585 million. Terms of the settlement, announced in a court filing, weren’t disclosed.

The former chief operating officer of Dewey & LeBoeuf, Dennis D'Alessandro, told prosecutors he was unaware of inappropriate accounting at the firm and did not believe his colleagues were doing anything illegal, the New York Law Journal reported today. The disclosure of D'Alessandro's statements turned over to the defense by the Manhattan District Attorney's office comes less than two months before trial is set to begin against three former Dewey leaders: ex-chairman Steven Davis, former executive director Stephen DiCarmine and chief financial officer Joel Sanders. Defense attorneys said that D'Alessandro's statements will be "very helpful" in establishing their clients' innocence. The Dewey defendants face more than 100 charges alleging they caused others at Dewey to make tens of millions of dollars of fraudulent accounting entries, which contributed to the firm's 2012 collapse.

Advisors to the shuttered Revel Casino Hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey, failed to get approval yesterday for an agreement to sell the hotel for $82 million and were told by Bankruptcy Judge Gloria Burns to look for a better price, Reuters reported yesterday. The decision by Judge Burns could open the door for a Los Angeles developer, Izek Shomof, whose attorney told yesterday’s court hearing he could offer more money. The ocean-front Revel has already lost two deals in the last six months, with the price dropping from $110 million to the current price. The massive hotel cost $2.4 billion to open in 2012. Revel had asked Judge Burns to approve the sale agreement with Florida developer Glenn Straub, who had failed to close a prior sale agreement. The current agreement required Straub to close the deal by March 31.