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A U.S. judge on Wednesday halted a lawsuit against Caesars Entertainment Corp., saying that it could derail last week's $5 billion agreement that was aimed at extracting the casino company from a costly bankruptcy, Reuters reported today. While a vast majority of Caesars creditors agreed to drop some $13 billion in legal claims against the casino group last week, a hedge fund with a $9.4 million claim refused to back the deal and sought to pursue its lawsuit. Trilogy Capital Management is one of several hedge funds that had accused Caesars of scrapping a guarantee on the debt of its bankrupt subsidiary, Caesars Entertainment Operating Co. Inc. (CEOC). A judgment in New York was due as soon as today. "The risk that the Trilogy action will derail the reorganization is too great," Bankruptcy Judge Benjamin Goldgar said yesterday. CEOC has secured the support of creditors who until last week were threatening its Nasdaq-listed parent with billions of dollars in claims over a series of transactions prior to the unit's bankruptcy filing in January 2015 with $18 billion of debt.

Murphy Energy Corp., an oil and natural gas transporter with terminals in Texas and Oklahoma, filed for chapter 11 protection, with a plan to look for buyers, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Lawyers who put Tulsa, Okla.-based Murphy Energy’s operations into bankruptcy proceedings on Tuesday said the company ran low on cash after completing its Port Hudson natural gas terminal in Louisiana. The chapter 11 filing makes Murphy the latest energy company to file for bankruptcy since fuel prices plummeted. Founded in 1993, Murphy Energy owns 10 truck-to-pipeline crude oil terminals in north Texas and Oklahoma that buy crude oil from producers and transport it to customers, according to documents filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Dallas. Its Louisiana operations include the Port Hudson terminal as well as Port Allen, which is under construction. Read more. (Subscription required.) 

Get a better understanding of what happens when an oil, gas or other natural resources company goes bankrupt. Order your copy of ABI's revised and expanded When Gushers Go Dry: The Essentials of Oil & Gas Bankruptcy, Second Edition. 

U.S. commercial bankruptcy filings during the first nine months of the year increased 28 percent to 28,789 over the 22,444 filings during the same period in 2015, according to data provided by Epiq Systems, Inc. Commercial chapter 11 filings rose slightly during the first nine months of 2016 as the 4,311 filings represented a 5 percent increase from the 4,091 chapter 11 filings during the first nine months of 2015. However, total bankruptcy filings fell 6 percent during the first nine months of 2016 (Jan. 1-Sept. 30) from the same period a year ago as the 593,034 filings decreased from 629,754 in 2015. The 564,245 total noncommercial filings through the first three quarters of 2016 also represented a 7 percent drop from the noncommercial filing total of 607,310 through the first three quarters of 2015. Read more. 

Bankruptcy judges at tomorrow’s Views from the Bench program will be discussing business bankruptcy trends and the ABI Chapter 11 Reform Commission’s recommendations on a panel titled, "What’s Wrong with Chapter 11?" Click here to register. 

The owner of Tex-Mex restaurant chain Don Pablo’s Mexican Kitchen filed for bankruptcy protection yesterday, blaming the downturn in the casual-dining business and increased competition from “fast-casual” Mexican brands, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Rita’s Restaurant Corp., which operates 16 Don Pablo’s and one Hops Grill and Brewery in 10 states, filed for chapter 11 protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in San Antonio. Like other casual eateries, Don Pablo’s has suffered in recent years as cash-strapped diners cut back on eating out, the chain’s bankruptcy lawyer John Mitchell said in court papers. The privately held Don Pablo’s is managed by FMP SA Management Group, an affiliate of Food Management Partners Inc., based in Hollywood Park, Texas. FMP also manages two other Texas-based restaurant chains now in bankruptcy: Buffets Restaurants, which filed for bankruptcy in March, and Zio’s Italian Kitchen, which sought chapter 11 protection last month.

Horsehead Holding has emerged from bankruptcy with plans to restart its state-of-the-art North Carolina zinc production facility idled just before the company went into chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings in early February, the Pittsburgh Business Times reported yesterday. The Pittsburgh-based manufacturer announced late Friday that it's under new ownership and under a bankruptcy plan approved by a Delaware court on Sept. 9, along with a new name, Horsehead Holding LLC instead of its previous name, Horsehead Holding Corp. Horsehead’s environmentally sustainable zinc plant in Mooresboro, N.C., cost upward of $550 million but now stands idled. The new ownership — a group led by Greywolf Capital Management LP — will provide the money to restart the plant, which replaced a longtime zinc smelter that employed more than 500 people in Beaver County before it was closed and the property sold to Royal Dutch Shell for its ethane cracker. While the North Carolina plant was expected to be a boost for Horsehead, the company wasn't able to fix all of the issues that plagued it in two years of operation or get it to its expected annual output.

The owner of the Souplantation and Sweet Tomatoes buffet chains filed for bankruptcy yesterday to facilitate a sale of the brands amid the continuing tough environment for restaurants, CFO.com reported yesterday. Garden Fresh Restaurant Corp. plans to close between 20 and 30 underperforming restaurants as part of its chapter 11 reorganization. It currently operates 124 units, primarily on the West Coast and in the Southwest. Garden Fresh, which is owned by private-equity firm Sun Partners, is the ninth restaurant operator to be pushed into bankruptcy since November 2015. 

Swiss-based ARG International AG, the trading house set up by Glencore Plc's former No. 2 aluminum trader Matt Lucke, is buying a bankrupt smelter in the U.S., its first acquisition since its founding nearly three years ago, Reuters reported on Friday. Noranda Aluminum Holding Corp said on Friday that it sold its 263,000 tonne-per-year New Madrid primary aluminum smelter in Missouri to ARG for $13.7 million in a court-approved auction. Noranda filed for bankruptcy in February after struggling with a sharp downturn in aluminum prices amid a global glut. Lucke founded ARG six months after leaving Glencore in the summer of 2013 alongside chief Gary Fegel, in a shakeup of the world's biggest aluminum trading desk.

Pacific Andes Resources Development (PARD), a Singapore-listed division of the beleaguered Ng-family controlled group, has filed for chapter 11 protection in the U.S., UnderCurrentNews.com reported on Friday. The filing comes after a creditor, Malayan Banking Berhard, known as Maybank, filed in the supreme court of Bermuda to wind up PARD, in addition to an application for the appointment of provisional liquidators over the company. These filings have the support of Rabobank, another lender to the group. Pacific Andes had previously applied for protection under the Singapore companies act while a restructuring process supervised by the Singapore court could proceed. On Sept. 26, the Singapore high court allowed the group’s application to extend the protection in order that the restructuring process could continue.