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The committee representing child sex abuse survivors in the Boy Scouts of America bankruptcy case has agreed to the extension of an injunction halting lawsuits against local Boy Scouts councils and sponsoring organizations, the Associated Press reported. In return for the extension, the BSA and local councils must provide the committee with information about local troop rosters that can help victims validate their claims, according to a court filing submitted on Monday. Attorneys for one of the BSA’s insurers argued in a court filing yesterday that the BSA is legally entitled to the injunction, and that the court should not grant any of the conditions it contains. The insurers argue that the arrangement regarding roster information would potentially reveal private information without the consent of local councils and sponsoring organizations. The current injunction expires March 19. A hearing on the proposed extension is scheduled for March 17.

The bankruptcy filing of Paper Source Inc. is squeezing small vendors the stationery chain uses to stock its shelves with greeting cards, Bloomberg News reported. Paper Source placed unusually large orders with greeting card suppliers in the months and weeks preceding the bankruptcy, according to interviews with two vendors and an outpouring of online complaints. The bankruptcy filing means that payment for those orders may be delayed and, in some cases, possibly never repaid in full. “If they were worried that we wouldn’t ship to them, they should’ve just paid up front for the product,” said Janie Velencia, owner of The Card Bureau in Washington, D.C. “$15,000 to them, that’s nothing. To a small business like me, that’s payroll, that’s rent.” Paper Source ordered more from The Card Bureau in a 60-day period than it had in all of 2020, according to Velencia. The chain ordered $5,000 worth of merchandise within 20 days of the filing and $10,000 in the weeks before that, she said. Vendors were asked for larger-than-usual orders after the holidays because Paper Source needed to stock 27 new stores it acquired from Papyrus, another stationery chain that went bankrupt last year, Chief Executive Officer Winnie Park said in an emailed statement. Most of the orders will get a higher repayment priority in bankruptcy because of their proximity to the filing, Park said.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro will announce details on a settlement agreement reached between the Office of the Attorney General and Chesapeake Energy, WNEP.com reported. Chesapeake Energy filed for bankruptcy in June 2020. The Office of the Attorney General filed a lawsuit against the company a few years ago looking to recover thousands of Pennsylvania landowners' money that were wrongfully deducted from fracking royalty checks.

Remington Outdoor Company is facing objections from families of shooting victims, among others, to its proposed wind-down plan as it nears the conclusion of its chapter 11 case, Reuters reported. The gunmaker, represented by O’Melveny & Myers, will request approval of its plan at a remote hearing on March 8 before U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Clifton Jessup Jr. in Decatur, Alabama. The plan comes after last year’s sales of Remington’s various ammunition and firearm assets. The sales brought in about $157 million to Remington’s estate, which will be used to pay off creditors. In July, Remington filed its second bankruptcy in two years in the face of litigation with families of shooting victims and increased retailer restrictions on gun sales, with $253.7 million in funded debt. Before seeking bankruptcy protection, Remington had been defending itself against a lawsuit brought by families of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. The case was put on hold as a result of the bankruptcy. The Connecticut Supreme Court in March 2019 ruled the families could sue Remington for wrongfully marketing the Bushmaster AR-15 rifle used by the shooter, Adam Lanza, whom they say was motivated by the advertising to commit his crimes. The U.S. Supreme Court later declined to review the ruling. The company has denied liability for the shooting.

Electricity retailers are asking Texas’s power regulator to suspend immediate collections on the massive bills arising from the state’s electricity outage, as energy market participants try to mitigate the threat to their financial health, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Electric retailer Just Energy Group Inc. on Wednesday filed a request to the Texas Public Utility Commission to suspend invoice collections by the state’s grid operator, one of several similar requests for relief by retail energy companies stemming from last month’s extreme winter freeze. The weather event knocked power plants offline, led to blackouts and caused a jump in energy prices in the Texas wholesale market, saddling many energy players with big bills to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the state’s grid operator. Already, the invoices have tipped the state’s largest electricity cooperative into bankruptcy and threatened the finances of cities, municipal power authorities, energy retailers, cooperatives and others including Just Energy. The company, based in Toronto, filed the request Wednesday to stop Ercot, which collects money from electric retailers to pay power plants, from issuing or settling invoices until questions raised by government authorities in Texas around the energy crisis “are investigated, addressed and resolved.” Just Energy has estimated its bills related to the weather event could reach $40 million. Read more.

In related news, Texas regulators voted to claw back some payments to power generators for services they never actually provided during the state’s massive blackouts last month, Bloomberg News reported. The move could save an estimated $80 million to $150 million, according to the independent market monitor for Texas’s grid, which recommended the change. The Public Utility Commission of Texas agreed yesterday to adopt the recommendation, saying retailers and others shouldn’t pay for so-called ancillary services to help smooth power flows on the grid if they weren’t delivered. It’s the first significant step by regulators to address the astronomical power bills accrued during the unprecedented cold blast that crippled the state’s grid. At peak, more than four million homes and businesses were without electricity, and power prices soared to record levels. The impact on individual companies is only starting to emerge. Texas’s power market is facing a $2.5 billion shortfall as retail electricity providers and others are squeezed by massive power bills in the wake of the crisis. Brazos Electric Power Cooperative, the largest power generation and transmission cooperative in the state, filed for bankruptcy after racking up an estimated $2.1 billion in charges. Griddy Energy LLC, the retailer whose customers were slammed with exorbitant electric bills, defaulted on its debt to the grid operator and has been banned from participating in the market. Read more.

The former owner of New York Sports Clubs and Lucille Roberts will forfeit a $250,000 bond to settle New York Attorney General Letitia James’ lawsuit over its billing practices during the coronavirus pandemic, Reuters reported. James had sued Town Sports International Holdings Inc in September, saying it kept charging membership dues, failed to issue promised credits, and refused to honor cancellation requests after the pandemic forced it to close its New York gyms last March. The settlement papers were filed in a New York state court in Manhattan on Wednesday. Town Sports did not admit liability. James had sued Town Sports in September, two weeks after the company filed for chapter 11 protection. A group of lenders led by private equity firm Tacit Capital later took control of many Town Sports assets in exchange for $80 million in debt. Town Sports is now winding down. James plans to provide restitution to gym members with the $250,000 bond, which Town Sports posted in 2015 under a state law to protect those members during a bankruptcy.

The Boy Scouts of America released a bankruptcy reorganization plan yesterday calling for local councils to contribute at least $300 million to a trust to settle tens of thousands of sex-abuse claims, the Washington Post reported. The long-awaited reorganization plan, filed as part of the Boy Scouts’ ongoing chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, begins to outline how the embattled organization aims to compensate the deluge of 85,000 potential victims who came forward last year with claims. But lawyers on behalf of both the victims and the group’s insurers say that they are unsatisfied with the plan. The Boy Scouts of America, which filed for bankruptcy in February 2020, had initially sought to shield its local councils from the bankruptcy process. But more recently, it became clear that any settlement was going to involve local council participation, and yesterday’s filing anticipates a $300 million contribution from some of the Boy Scouts’ 253 councils across the country. The plan did not state which councils would contribute to the fund, or how. To fund the settlement trust, the Boy Scouts of America will also contribute a collection of Norman Rockwell paintings, a warehouse facility in North Carolina, the rights to a Scouting University property in Texas, certain oil and gas interests in several states, and any unrestricted cash above a $75 million minimum.

A judge rejected an effort by a major National Rifle Association vendor to get a bigger voice for suppliers in the gun group’s bankruptcy, ruling there was no proof trade creditors aren’t adequately represented in the chapter 11 case, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Membership Marketing Partners LLC argued that the unsecured creditors committee in the chapter 11 case needed more input from vendors and accused the Justice Department’s bankruptcy watchdog who picked the committee of stacking it with parties that have “an axe to grind” against NRA management. Such requests to reconstitute creditor committees are rarely made in chapter 11. Judge Harlin DeWayne Hale called MMP’s request unusual during a hearing last Wednesday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Dallas before he denied MMP’s bid to reconstitute the committee. MMP has a longstanding business relationship with the gun group. It is mentioned in the New York attorney general’s lawsuit against the NRA, which preceded the bankruptcy filing and alleges spending abuses at the nonprofit gun-rights group. The NRA has denied the allegations and claimed they were politically motivated. The lawsuit doesn’t accuse MMP of wrongdoing. The New York complaint describes trips that NRA Chief Executive Wayne LaPierre allegedly took to visit MMP’s principal and stay on his 108-foot yacht while visiting the Bahamas. The lawsuit said Mr. LaPierre’s use of the yacht constituted a gift and wasn’t disclosed by the NRA, a violation of the organization’s bylaws, a claim the NRA and Mr. LaPierre have denied. The company also leases office space in the NRA’s Virginia headquarters, and was paid $71 million by the NRA from 2014 through 2020 for fundraising, mailing and printing, according to court documents filed last week by the NRA in response to New York Attorney General Letitia James’ lawsuit.