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When news first surfaced that Panthers owner David Tepper had taken the shell company he formed to build his team’s new practice facility to bankruptcy, some pundits were concerned that he was playing a financial shell game with companies that provided services to the construction effort. The company owed the most money for a project that was aborted through no fault of its own has expressed concern, too, NBC.com reported. Via TheAthletic.com, Mascaro/Barton Malow contends it is owed $80 million. It claims that Tepper and the Panthers provided the real money and influence to the project that technically was managed by GT Real Estate. “Virtually every aspect of this case is tainted by the control of Tepper and the Carolina Panthers,” the contractor said in a court filing, later referring to the “murky and suspicious structure that is the Debtor/Tepper/Carolina Panthers enterprise.”

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany on Wednesday proposed mediated financial settlements for survivors of clergy sex abuse as an alternative to court battles or the diocese declaring bankruptcy, the Albany Daily Gazette reported. The diocese is facing a potentially huge cost from the more than 400 claims pending against it in court, both in legal bills and judgments. In an open letter, it said mediation would result in a more equitable distribution of the finite pot of funds it has available for the purpose. But a law firm representing two dozen people who claim to have been molested by Albany Diocese clergy decades ago called it a bogus and cynical maneuver to avoid transparency and accountability. Three years ago in New York, the long-running clergy pedophilia scandal took a sharp turn from a shocking revelation about one of society’s most respected institutions to a major financial threat: The state Child Victims Act briefly allowed civil lawsuits for decades-old incidents that had been — and once again are — far beyond the normal statute of limitations for a civil lawsuit. Four of New York State’s eight Catholic dioceses — Buffalo, Rochester, Rockville Center and Syracuse — subsequently filed for bankruptcy under the financial weight of potential legal settlements or trial verdicts.

Endo International Plc, the latest drugmaker impaired by opioid lawsuits, must decide whether to skip more than $90 million in interest payments as it contemplates a potential bankruptcy filing, Bloomberg News reported. The company has been discussing its options with creditor groups that have conflicting views over its best path for dealing with lawsuits over its role in America’s opioid epidemic, a mounting debt load and a dimmed outlook for its bestselling drug. The company’s senior lenders have advocated for a bankruptcy filing and want the company to skip upcoming interest payments to preserve cash, according to people with knowledge of the talks. Endo’s lower-ranking creditors — the ones that would collect the bulk of interest due Thursday and at the end of July, are pressing options that would allow the drugmaker to restructure outside of court. Endo has a payment due on June 30 to holders of 6% bonds maturing in 2028. At the end of July the company is scheduled to pay $55 million more in interest to various other creditors, according to data collected by Bloomberg. Senior lenders have argued the advantages of skipping the interest payments and filing for bankruptcy. Endo and the lenders have been trading proposals as they try to come to a deal. The 6% unsecured notes due 2028 traded at 6 cents on the dollar Wednesday, according to Trace data. Meanwhile, the 5.875% first-lien bonds due 2024 changed hands at approximately 76 cents on the dollar.

Three Arrows Capital plunged deeper into financial turmoil Wednesday after a court in the British Virgin Islands ordered the crypto-focused hedge fund into liquidation following its failure to repay creditors as the value of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have nosedived, the Washington Post reported. The liquidation order comes after a high-profile notice of default: On Monday, crypto broker Voyager Digital announced that Three Arrows Capital had not made the required payments on a loan worth more than $665 million, paid partly in bitcoin. Two senior members of the global advisory firm Teneo have been appointed by the court to help manage the liquidation. In coming days, Teneo will have a website that will allow potential creditors of Three Arrows Capital to submit claims and receive more information about the insolvency. Three Arrows Capital was created in 2012 by Su Zhu and Kyle Davies, and is known for its bullish moves on crypto. But signs of trouble emerged in May when Su admitted publicly that his thesis about escalating crypto prices was “regrettably wrong.” Then, in a cryptic tweet earlier this month, he said that, “We are in the process of communicating with relevant parties and fully committed to working this out,” without offering relevant details. Days later, the Financial Times reported that Three Arrows Capital had failed to meet demands from lenders to show extra funds after its wagers on crypto had gone bust.

In patches of rural Appalachia and the Rust Belt, the health authorities were sounding alarms that a powerful painkiller called Opana had become the drug of choice among people abusing prescription pills, the New York Times reported. It was twice as potent as OxyContin, the painkiller widely blamed for sparking the opioid crisis, and was relatively easy to dissolve and inject. By 2015, government investigations and scientific publications had linked its misuse to clusters of disease, including a rare and life-threatening blood disorder and an H.I.V. outbreak in Indiana. Opana’s manufacturer, the pharmaceutical company Endo, had scaled back promotion of the drug. But months later, the company abruptly changed course, refocusing resources on the drug by assigning more sales representatives. The push was known internally as the Sales Force Blitz — and it was conducted with consultants at McKinsey & Company, who had been hired by Endo to provide marketing advice about its chronic-pain medicines and other products. A campaign by McKinsey and Endo to push the company's chronic-pain products, including Opana. The untold story of McKinsey’s work for Endo was among the revelations found by The New York Times in a repository of more than 100,000 documents obtained by a coalition of state attorneys general in a legal settlement related to McKinsey’s opioid work. Much has been disclosed over the years about McKinsey’s relationship with Purdue Pharma, including the consulting firm’s recommendation that the drug maker “turbocharge” its sales of OxyContin. But The Times found that the firm played a far deeper and broader role in advising clients involved in the opioid crisis than was publicly disclosed. The newly released McKinsey records include more than 15 years of emails, slide presentations, spreadsheets, proposals and other documents. They provide a sweeping and detailed depiction of a firm that became a trusted adviser to companies at the core of an epidemic that has claimed half a million American lives.

Massachusetts power plant operator Salem Harbor Power Development LP on Tuesday asked a U.S. bankruptcy judge in Delaware to approve a $43 million settlement with federal energy regulators over construction delays at its natural-gas fired plant, Reuters reported. Salem Harbor said it had agreed to pay a $17 million civil penalty and to disgorge $26.7 million in profits as a result of a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) investigation into its collection of payments meant to incentivize energy production. FERC had alleged that Salem Harbor took $100 million in payments, but failed to meet power generation commitments due to construction delays that prevented its power plant from opening on schedule. Salem Harbor did not admit wrongdoing, but said the settlement would avoid costly litigation in its bankruptcy case. Salem Harbor recently decided to pursue a restructuring that would hand its assets to secured lenders rather than finding an outside buyer, and it amended its chapter 11 plan of reorganization on Monday to remove references to a potential sale. The company will ask U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Mary Walrath on Thursday for her approval to begin soliciting creditor votes on the amended plan. Former construction partner Iberdrola Energy Projects Inc (IEP), which is attempting to preserve an arbitration award against Salem Harbor, objected to that request. IEP, which was hired to build Salem Harbor’s power plant in 2014 before the relationship soured, has been embroiled in litigation with the company since the 2018 termination of the construction agreement. Salem Harbor blamed IEP for rising costs and delays, and Iberdrola launched arbitration proceedings over the canceled contract, eventually winning a $236 million judgment against Salem Harbor.

Oklahoma has reached a $250 million settlement with AmerisourceBergen Corp, Cardinal Health Inc and McKesson Corp to resolve allegations the drug distributors contributed to the opioid epidemic in the state, Oklahoma Attorney General John O'Connor said on Monday, Reuters reported. O'Connor said Oklahoma recovered more money from the distributors than the state would have received if it had joined a nationwide $26 billion settlement that was announced last year. The national settlement also includes Johnson & Johnson. Oklahoma sued J&J separately, but in November the case was thrown out on appeal, negating a $465 million trial judgment and undermining Oklahoma's legal theories in its opioid litigation. AmerisourceBergen said drug distributors have been forced to "walk a legal and ethical tightrope" without clearer regulatory guidance on how to protect consumers from legal but potentially dangerous drugs.

Endo International PLC junior bondholders have formed a group to press the drugmaker not to file for bankruptcy as it faces opioid-related lawsuits and a drop in earnings, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The group of institutional investors said on Monday that it has proposed several out-of-court transactions, including a bond swap, that would enable Endo to continue operating its business and investing in new drugs. The bondholder group, which is advised by law firm White & Case LLP and financial adviser GLC Advisors & Co. LLC, said that “a near-term bankruptcy filing is unnecessary” due to the company’s strong liquidity and free cash flow generation. As of March 31, Endo had cash on hand of more than $1.4 billion and $640 million of availability under its revolving credit line. There are no significant debt maturities until October 2024, the group said. Endo, has more than $8 billion in debt, of which about $1.3 billion are unsecured, or junior, bonds. The company has recently started talks with a separate group of lenders and senior bondholders about a potential restructuring. One of Endo’s most pressing challenges is litigation alleging it helped fuel the opioid addiction epidemic. While the company has reached settlements with a handful of state and local governments over opioid liabilities, there are still thousands more outstanding lawsuits it hasn’t yet resolved. The company has been warning of the risk of a bankruptcy filing in its regulatory disclosures since last year.

Bond salesmen working out of strip malls across America pitched GWG Holdings Inc. as a good investment. The company would use money raised from bond sales to buy life-insurance policies from people who wanted cash up front, then collect the payouts when those people died. Investors, many of them elderly and retired individuals, put $1.3 billion into the bonds. What many of these retail investors didn’t know was that GWG’s founders and a board director would each use the money to fund and launch their own startup ventures, then move them out of the investors’ reach, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The roughly 27,000 individuals who bought GWG’s unique debt securities, known as L Bonds, are now facing huge potential losses — for many, their retirement nest eggs. Since 2018, GWG has invested at least $230 million into former chairman Brad Heppner’s alternative-finance startup, the Beneficient Group Co LP, which aims to help wealthy people and institutions convert illiquid assets into cash. The company also put $28 million into FOXO Technologies Inc., a biotech venture backed by GWG founder Jon Sabes, which uses saliva tests to harvest people’s DNA and predict when they are likely to die. But GWG no longer controls either of the startup ventures. Mr. Heppner, Mr. Sabes, and their associates carved out both ventures as independent entities shortly before the company collapsed into bankruptcy in April. The judge overseeing the court proceedings in Houston said he had never before seen a company give up control of everything it owns before seeking chapter 11 protection. GWG, which employed 160 people as of December 2020, is now a shell operation with just two employees remaining. The company is under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission, and faces lawsuits from investors who claim they were defrauded. GWG has denied wrongdoing and said it fully disclosed its business risks to investors.