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A federal judge in Texas on Friday dismissed the bankruptcy protection case of Infowars and two other companies controlled by Alex Jones, the result of an agreement between lawyers for the conspiracy theorist and parents of some of the children slain in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, the Associated Press reported. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez approved the deal after a brief court hearing. The judge’s action allows the parents’ defamation lawsuits against Jones to continue in Texas and Connecticut, where trials are pending on how much he should pay families after judges in both states found Jones and his companies liable for damages. The families' lawsuits say they have been subjected to harassment and death threats from Jones’ followers because of the hoax conspiracy. Jones, based in Austin, Texas, has since said he believes the shooting did occur. Relatives of eight of the 20 first graders and six educators killed in the massacre and an FBI agent who responded to the school in Newtown, Connecticut, are suing Jones and Free Speech Systems. Infowars, Prison Planet TV and IW Health consented to dismissing the bankruptcy case last week after the families agreed to drop the three companies from their defamation lawsuits. Those lawsuits will continue against Jones himself and his largest moneymaking company, Free Speech Systems.

Chemical maker TPC Group Inc. asked a bankruptcy court to find that investment firms Cerberus Capital Management LP and Bayside Capital Inc. can’t pursue litigation against the claims of other bondholders, saying that a combined 10% stake in a $930 million bond is too small to give the minority holders the right to sue, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. TPC asked to throw out a lawsuit alleging that roughly $205 million in bonds held by other company investors doesn’t deserve to rank senior to Bayside and Cerberus, dissenting bondholders owning roughly $90 million in 10.5% bonds issued in 2019. TPC in 2021 and 2022 issued roughly $205 million in bonds with priority over the 2019 debt, backed by creditors holding more than two-thirds of the earlier debt, court papers show. The Houston-based company filed for bankruptcy earlier this month with a restructuring agreement backed by most bondholders but not by Cerberus and Bayside. Cerberus and Bayside sued TPC shortly after its bankruptcy filing, arguing the company breached its debt agreements by layering new debt on top of Cerberus and Bayside without the consent of every bondholder whose rights would be affected. Cerberus and Bayside said they “were not even informed of the transaction until after it was consummated.” Now, creditors holding majorities of both tranches of notes are being enriched, according to the complaint.

South Carolina’s York County is suing Panthers owner David Tepper’s companies and the City of Rock Hill for at least $21 million over the failed completion of the team’s proposed $800 million practice facility and headquarters, the Associated Press reported. The structure remains half-built in Rock Hill, S.C., with no plans of being finished. Tepper’s real estate company filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Delaware on June 2 after having invested more than $175 million into the facility. It is located about 25 miles south of the team’s current downtown stadium and headquarters in Charlotte. Among Tepper’s companies named in the lawsuit are DT Sports Holding, LLC, Appaloosa Management LP and Tepper Sports Holding, Inc. York County officials say the purpose of the lawsuit is to protect the county and its taxpayers and recover damages caused by these defendants. The complaint filed Thursday said Tepper and his companies took $21 million from a special penny sales tax intended to expand a road in York County and used the money for what the county’s lawyers called a “failed vanity project.”

A New Jersey-based real-estate investment firm filed for bankruptcy, under investigation by federal and state authorities following the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s arrest of an executive adviser last year, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. National Realty Investment Advisors LLC and more than 100 affiliates filed for chapter 11 on Tuesday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Newark, N.J., with the goal of preventing a “disorderly liquidation” of an estimated $225 million portfolio of investment properties located across four Eastern states. The firm has been steered by independent manager Brian Casey since late April following the arrest of an NRIA contractor last year and the resignation of its longtime chief executive. Based in Secaucus, N.J., NRIA has developed and managed residential and mixed-use development projects across the East Coast for more than a decade, raising money from thousands of individual investors who learned of the opportunity through the company’s advertisements on the radio and on television. In court papers filed Wednesday, Mr. Casey said that NRIA’s real-estate assets in New York, New Jersey, Florida and Pennsylvania are expected to provide “a substantial, if not full, recovery” to roughly 2,000 investors holding around $540 million in preferred shares. NRIA enters chapter 11 under investigation by federal prosecutors in New Jersey as well as the Securities and Exchange Commission and securities regulators in New Jersey, Illinois and Alabama, Mr. Casey said.

Two hours before church sex abuse victims on a court-appointed committee were scheduled to address Archbishop Gregory Aymond in bankruptcy court, a federal judge put a stop to it and removed four of the six victims from the panel, NOLA.com reported. Bankruptcy Judge Meredith Grabill said in her order that she was forced to remove them because one of their attorneys, Richard Trahant, had allegedly disclosed “highly confidential information” in violation of her previous orders. That leaves only two members remaining on a committee representing about 450 alleged victims of sexual abuse by clergy in the Archdiocese of New Orleans’ two-year-old bankruptcy case. The committee was going to court Tuesday to begin mediation, a process to decide how much money the archdiocese owes its creditors. Victims of sexual abuse by clergy were prepared to argue the church owes them damages for allegedly allowing abuse to happen and covering it up.

Bankrupt pharmaceutical company Mallinckrodt Plc will seek expedited approval to raise $650 million in debt to finance its exit from chapter 11, replacing a $900 million loan that fell through amid market volatility, Reuters reported. Mallinckrodt's reorganization plan was approved in February in Delaware bankruptcy court, but the company remains in chapter 11 as it finalizes agreements and works to secure exit funding. Anupama Yerramalli, an attorney for Mallinckrodt from Latham & Watkins, said in court on Monday that the company will seek approval for the new exit financing on Wednesday. The new exit financing will be funded largely by the company's existing bondholders after the earlier-planned loan failed to generate sufficient market interest from debt investors. Bankruptcy Judge John Dorsey said that he would consider the request, but would give other parties time to object to the fast-track schedule before Wednesday. Andrew Rosenberg of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, an attorney for bondholders who will provide additional financing, urged the court to move quickly, given the volatile market conditions that disrupted the initial $900 million loan and could still imperil the new financing. Mallinckrodt did not immediately respond to a request for comment on its exit from chapter 11. The Ireland-based company makes generic drugs, including opioids, and branded drugs including Acthar Gel, which is used to treat multiple sclerosis and infantile spasms. It filed for chapter 11 protection in 2020 in the face of opioid-related lawsuits and a court battle over Medicaid rebates for Acthar, its top-selling drug. The company's reorganization plan includes a $1.7 billion settlement to resolve thousands of lawsuits accusing it of deceptively marketing its opioids. The plan allows Mallinckrodt to reduce $5.3 billion in debt by $1.3 billion and hands control of the reorganized company to creditors.

Infowars is jettisoning its bankruptcy case after families of Sandy Hook school shooting victims who are suing the conspiracy site’s founder, Alex Jones, withdrew from the chapter 11 process, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Properties holding the trademark and web-domain rights to Infowars agreed on Wednesday to dismiss their chapter 11 cases as part of a stipulation with the Justice Department’s bankruptcy watchdog, which has questioned the basis for the bankruptcy. W. Marc Shwartz, a certified public accountant who was retained as Infowars’s chief restructuring officer, determined it was in the best interest of the site and its creditors to end the bankruptcy in light of Sandy Hook families’ decision to effectively withdraw from the chapter 11 process, according to papers filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Victoria, Texas. The bankruptcy filing threatened the Sandy Hook families with a potentially lengthy delay to their defamation suits against Mr. Jones even though he didn’t file personal bankruptcy. To resume litigation against Mr. Jones, the families agreed last month to drop legal claims against the Infowars properties that were put into chapter 11. The families of the children murdered in the Sandy Hook massacre sued Mr. Jones in 2018 for repeatedly saying the school shooting, which killed 20 first-graders and six adults in Newtown, Conn., was a hoax and falsely claiming the families were actors and faked the deaths of their loved ones. Lawyers representing some families who have sued Mr. Jones have said that the bankruptcy was part of a last-ditch effort to avoid a Texas trial to establish damages against him. A separate damages trial in Connecticut state court is scheduled for September.

Embattled San Antonio attorney Christopher “Chris” Pettit and his law firm, accused of defrauding clients of millions of dollars, have filed for bankruptcy protection, the San Antonio News-Express reported. Pettit listed assets of almost $27.8 million and debts of $115.2 million in his individual chapter 11 petition, making it one of the largest individual bankruptcy cases ever filed in San Antonio. His firm, Chris Pettit & Associates, reported assets valued at no more than $50,000. The filings on Wednesday trumped plans by six Pettit creditors to file involuntary chapter 7 cases against him and his firm today, said Raymond Battaglia, their San Antonio bankruptcy lawyer. The bankruptcy lawyer representing Pettit and his firm has indicated he intends to ask the court to appoint a trustee to oversee the debtors’ estates, Battaglia said. “This case is going to require someone who can trace assets and trace transfers and things that (Pettit’s) done with other people’s monies over the last couple of years,” he added. The bankruptcies come after numerous lawsuits against Pettit and his firm, most alleging they stole millions of dollars from clients. He has given general denials in responses to some of the suits, but he and his firm also reached an agreed judgment with some plaintiffs who were awarded — at least on paper — millions in economic and punitive damages. Others allege that they lost far less, but that the amounts nonetheless represent their life savings. The FBI also is investigating. Pettit specializes in estate-planning and personal-injury law, according to his firm’s website.

The Supreme Court passed on an appeal, raising questions about bankruptcy court jurisdiction arising from a 2013 train derailment in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, that killed 47 people, Dow Jones Newswires reported. Justices on Tuesday declined to hear a case brought on behalf of victims who have been seeking to revive lawsuits against Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd., one of several companies sued in the disaster. Plaintiffs argued that lower courts improperly applied federal bankruptcy rules to their wrongful-death claims instead of ordinary rules of federal civil procedure governing nonbankruptcy disputes. The distinction resulted in lower courts dismissing their claims against Canadian Pacific.