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Bankrupt media outlet Vice Media has found a bidder for its business that wants to chart a new course for the beleaguered company outside chapter 11 bankruptcy, the Wall Street Journal reported. Digital media conglomerate GoDigital is in advanced talks to buy all of Vice’s assets including its core news business and female-focused Refinery29 at an upcoming bankruptcy auction, the people said. A bid could put GoDigital in competition with Fortress Investment Group and Soros Fund Management, lenders to Vice that have offered to swap outstanding debts for ownership of the business. GoDigital’s bid would likely value Vice at between $300 million and $350 million. The talks involving GoDigital aren’t guaranteed to produce a workable deal. Any bidder needs to show it has sufficient funds to buy Vice, and GoDigital is still finishing due diligence on the company and preparing documentation.

Liquidators of Three Arrows Capital want a judge to fine co-founder Kyle Davies $10,000 per day, claiming their ability to unwind the failed cryptocurrency hedge fund has been impeded by his refusal to cooperate with their investigation into the firm’s collapse, Bloomberg News reported. The substantial fine is warranted because Davies hasn’t responded to a subpoena served nearly 5 months ago, lawyers for the 3AC liquidators said in a filing in New York bankruptcy court earlier this week. The decision to impose the fine is up to Judge Martin Glenn who said in a ruling earlier this year that Davies risked being held in contempt of court if he failed to comply with the subpoena and continued to sit out the proceedings. Liquidators have taken unorthodox steps in an effort to get the 3AC co-founders to turn over information, including getting approval from Glenn to issue the subpoena to Davies via Twitter, where he frequently posts. Given the circumstances, a $10,000-per-day fine “is fair and likely meaningful in persuading Davies to respond,” the liquidators said. The liquidators have said they don’t know where Davies or fellow co-founder Su Zhu are currently residing. However, they referenced a June 9 New York Times article that reported Davies flew to Bali after 3AC collapsed. In a sworn statement, 3AC liquidator Russell Crumpler cited Davies’ comments in the article as evidence that the founder has shown no remorse for the collapse of the firm, which owes creditors roughly $3 billion.

Proppant Tech Services LLC began producing frac sand — used for hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to drill in rock — to sell to oil and gas companies or other sand processors in August at a 179-acre sand quarry in south Bexar County, Texas, the San Antonio Express-News reported. The company generated $6 million in revenue in its first six months. However, loans totaling about $8.8 million to Proppant and landowner NA Land Investments LLC ended up in default. The lender, Amarillo National Bank, last month notified the borrowers that it would foreclose on the collateral. The companies’ owners — Anirban “Bon” Haldar, Murray Moran and Ignacio Martinez — had made individual guarantees that the loans would be repaid. Each owns a third of both companies. To avoid losing the assets in foreclosure, Martinez acquired the debt from the bank through his company I.M.Investments LLC. He also owns IPE Aggregate LLC, a New Braunfels-based industrial equipment supplier that provided some of the equipment for Proppant’s operations. He wasn’t acting as a white knight for his partners, however, as he subsequently demanded that they relinquish the collateral and cease all operations and control of Proppant. I.M. Investments even posted the land for next month’s foreclosure auction. Haldar and Moran ignored the request, so I.M. Investments last week sued them in state District Court in San Antonio and obtained a temporary restraining order that bars them operating Proppant. They responded by putting Proppant and NA Land into bankruptcy on June 11.

Drugmaker Mallinckrodt is seeking to postpone or not pay in full the $200 million payment due today to an opioid-victims compensation trust, according to people familiar with the company’s planning, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Mallinckrodt has indicated that it might not make the opioid payment and is in discussions with financial creditors to seek waivers from potential defaults arising from nonpayment, the people said. Friday’s scheduled payment is Mallinckrodt’s second under a $1.7 billion settlement with state and local governments and private plaintiffs who alleged that it played a role in fueling the opioid crisis. The drugmaker has struggled since exiting chapter 11 last year and is now considering a repeat bankruptcy filing to revamp its balance sheet a second time. Mallinckrodt owes $1.25 billion of remaining payments under the opioid plan, which included liability releases for the company and its executives. No final decision on Friday’s payment has been made. Earlier Thursday, the company said in a securities filing it has decided not to pay $56 million in interest payments owed to its secured bondholders. It said it continues to engage with creditors on restructuring proposals they submitted that could be completed in or out of bankruptcy court.

The bankruptcy of a Prime Trust subsidiary is yet another indication that ‘crypto winter’ is a long, long way from thawing, CoinGeek.com reported. On Tuesday, Nevada-based crypto-friendly payment processor Banq Inc filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, citing the “unauthorized” transfers of $17.5 million worth of assets to non-fungible token (NFT) projects set up by a trio of former Banq executives, including its founder and former CEO Scott Purcell. In May 2022, Banq filed a civil suit in federal court against its former execs for having stolen its technology and “significant other value of Banq’s” and used the ill-gotten gains to launch Fortress NFT and Planet NFT. Banq accused the execs of violating non-disclosure agreements and the Nevada Uniform Trade Secrets Act. Banq claimed that in May 2021, then-CEO Purcell abruptly informed Banq shareholders that he was “suspending all sales and marketing efforts … just as [Banq] was beginning to generate revenue.” Purcell said he’d decided to ‘redirect’ Banq’s focus toward NFT wallet technology. In July 2021, Purcell had Banq take out a $3 million loan from Delaware-registered N9 Advisors LLC to further this reorientation.

Crypto lender Abra has been insolvent or nearly insolvent since the end of March, Texas regulators said yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported. In an emergency cease and desist order, the Texas State Securities Board alleged that Abra, its related entities and founder William John “Bill” Barhydt committed securities fraud. Abra offered and sold investments in its yield programs Abra Earn and Abra Boost that contained “statements that are materially misleading or otherwise likely to deceive the public,” the regulator said. The Silicon Valley-based company also secretly transferred assets to Binance.com—an exchange banned for Americans—and had assets valued at about $119 million with the global crypto exchange as of February, according to the complaint. As of February, the complaint said, Abra had more than $12 million stuck at collapsed crypto exchange FTX. It also made tens of millions of dollars of bad loans to several crypto companies that failed last year, including nearly $30 million to Babel Finance, $30 million to Genesis and $10 million to Three Arrows Capital. (Subscription required.)

Cryptocurrency trading platform Bittrex is expected to resume customer withdrawals on June 15 following an order from a judge in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, Cointelegraph.com reported. The decision does not settle the question of the subordination of U.S. government claims, which had led to objections against its plan. “Objections (if any) to the Motion having been withdrawn, resolved or overruled on the merits,” Judge Brendan Shannon’s June 13 order read. It went on to stipulate that nothing in the motion or the order constituted a finding on whether crypto assets or transactions with them are securities. The order also specified that it does not determine the priority of creditors or prohibit the U.S. from clawing back assets from customers if it is not paid in full. Bittrex’s largest creditor is the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), to which it owes $24 million.

Bed Bath & Beyond’s top lender is preparing for a possible bid for at least some of the bankrupt home-goods retailer’s assets, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Sixth Street Partners is planning to use more than $500 million of its debt in the company to bid, the lender’s lawyer David Hillman said in a bankruptcy-court hearing Wednesday. Sixth Street plans to bid in the form of debt forgiveness in the event that other offers for Bed Bath & Beyond’s assets come up less than what it considers satisfactory. Sixth Street, the retailer’s biggest lender, could seek to acquire the Buybuy Baby chain or all of the retailer’s assets out of bankruptcy. Bed Bath & Beyond has been in talks with Go Global Retail, the owner of children’s apparel retailer Janie and Jack, to acquire Buybuy Baby and keep the chain operating, the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month. Sixth Street replaced JPMorgan Chase, Bed Bath’s former senior lender, and secured the rights as lead creditor to bid using its debt holdings, Hillman said at Wednesday’s hearing. Top lenders have the right to take over the assets of a bankrupt borrower as a way to satisfy their claims. JPMorgan has been paid out in full and is expected to resign as the agent on a prebankruptcy loan by the end of the week, a lawyer representing the lender said in court.

The Rockport Co. said on Thursday that it has filed chapter 11 bankruptcy in a U.S. District Court in Delaware and will put itself up for sale, FootwearNews.com reported. According to the footwear brand, its subsidiaries CB Marathon Midco, LLC, Rockport IP Holdings, LLC, Rockport UK Holdings Ltd. and CB Footwear Services, LLC have also joined in the bankruptcy filing. Rockport said that it’s taking this motion in order to “review and restructure” its assets for the benefit of all stakeholders and to better position the brand for future growth opportunities. As part of the bankruptcy, Rockport said it also intends to file a motion seeking authorization to pursue an auction and sale process. The proposed bidding procedures, if approved by the court, would require interested parties to submit binding offers to acquire Rockport’s assets.