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Vegan celebrity chef Chloe Coscarelli is fighting the bankrupt parent company of plant-based restaurant chain By Chloe over the brand’s trademark, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Coscarelli and her company, Chef Chloe LLC, agreed to a court hearing later this month so that a bankruptcy judge could determine the ownership of the trademark of By Chloe, the fast-casual chain she co-founded but left behind after a dispute. Representatives for By Chloe’s owner BC Hospitality Group Inc. argued during a virtual hearing Wednesday that Ms. Coscarelli is trying to take away the company’s rights over the trademark, one of the most valuable assets of the estate. The company has said in court papers that Coscarelli’s request could derail the chain’s sale process and wreak havoc on the ability of its bankruptcy case to move forward. BC Hospitality Group filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December to ease a sale of the restaurant business, which has about a dozen corporate-owned locations, after it faced a cash crunch brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. The company, partially owned by investment firm Bain Capital LP, has scheduled an auction for the chain on March 1, if necessary. Both sides want the issue to be resolved in advance of a hearing on March 4 for the judge to consider approving a winning bidder and to confirm BC Hospitality Group’s proposed bankruptcy plan.

Regal Entertainment Group owner Cineworld Group PLC on Monday paid a disputed interest payment to investors that recently provided the movie-theater operator with a $450 million rescue loan, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The dispute stems from what Cineworld has said was a drafting error that resulted in a 1% Libor floor being included in the loan’s interest expense even though the movie-theater chain had originally intended the loan to have a 0% floor. If a loan has a 1% Libor floor it means that even if Libor — short for London interbank offered rate, a benchmark interest rate determined by an array of financial institutions — is below 1%, lenders are still paid the minimum 1% interest rate in addition to other interest included in their credit agreement. When Cineworld initially refused to pay the interest expense, the lenders said the company was obligated to because the final credit agreement all parties signed included the 1% floor. The company ultimately capitulated and paid the missing interest expense, amounting to several million dollars, after being informed that the lenders would freeze its access to the loan because it was in default.

Consol Energy Inc. was dealt another blow in its campaign against the bankruptcy plan of an Ohio-based rival, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported. A judge ruled on Monday that Consol doesn’t have standing to appeal the plan of bankrupt miner Murray Energy Inc. It was approved in May. Cecil, Pa.-based Consol, which sold five mines to Murray Energy in 2013, has been trying to scuttle the settlement that Murray reached with its creditors and the United Mine Workers of America union, claiming that it wasn’t fair to Consol, an unsecured creditor in the bankruptcy. On Monday, the bankruptcy judge wrote that Consol wasn’t aggrieved enough by the settlement to be able to appeal it, at least not in the legal sense. The conflict stems from that 2013 sale, a deal that transferred responsibility for paying retiree benefits due the miners who worked at those mines and their beneficiaries from the Pennsylvania company to the Ohio firm. Those benefits are protected by the Coal Act, which says that if an employer defaults on those responsibilities, the last company that owned them — if it is still in business — would be on the hook. Murray Energy, founded and led by firebrand Robert Murray, filed for chapter 11 protection in October 2019. The company said that given coal’s declining financial prospects and the weight of the company’s debts, it could only re-emerge as a functional entity if it shed much of its liabilities, including those under the Coal Act. In legal filings last year, Consol alleged that Murray Energy and the miners’ union colluded to dump those health care liabilities on Consol. And just after Murray’s bankruptcy plan, which rejected those obligations, was approved, the retiree’s benefit plan sued Consol and its previous parent, now called CNX Resources Inc., in federal court in Washington D.C., asking a judge to make the two Pittsburgh area companies pay.

Purdue Pharma LP and some of its creditors want a judge to rule on their contention that they have rights to as much as $3.3 billion in insurance coverage as the OxyContin maker continues working on a plan to exit chapter 11 and recover proceeds to help address the opioid epidemic, the Wall Street Journal reported. Stamford, Conn.-based Purdue last week sued over a dozen of its insurers in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in White Plains, N.Y., saying its insurance policies are among its most valuable assets, but adding that it needs a judge to clarify the scope of coverage the policies provide so its advisers can formulate a plan to repay creditors. Purdue’s lawsuit lists dozens of insurance policies covering periods between 2001 and 2018. The drugmaker said its insurance companies have either disputed or declined to fully comply with their coverage obligations related to opioid-related litigation brought against Purdue. The actual amount of insurance proceeds Purdue may wind up recovering will be determined in court, and claims made in the lawsuit will likely be challenged by the insurance companies. The lawsuit names several insurance companies, among them AIG Specialty Insurance Co. and Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. Purdue filed for chapter 11 protection in September 2019, with some support for a deal with creditors including states and municipalities to resolve claims for damages due to OxyContin’s alleged role in driving a nationwide epidemic of addiction that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. Members of the Sackler family who own Purdue have been sued along with the company for alleged improper marketing of OxyContin, and have offered to give up the business and contribute cash to a trust to be set up as part of a bankruptcy exit plan. Purdue pleaded guilty in November to three federal felonies, including paying illegal kickbacks and deceiving drug-enforcement officials. Members of the Sackler family have denied wrongdoing, but have agreed to contribute $3 billion to a Purdue bankruptcy plan.

The Washington Department of Agriculture has launched an investigation into how 200,000 cows at the center of a massive fraud allegation against a Pasco ranching operation may have slipped through its inspection process, the Spokane Spokesman-Review reported. The ghost herd is key to a legal fight between Tyson Foods Inc. and Easterday Ranches Inc., which on Monday filed for chapter 11 protection. The Easterdays, one of the largest farming and ranching families in the state, claims in court filings it owes more than $236 million to its top 20 creditors. The Pasco, Wash.-based ranching and feedlot operation is seeking to reorganize using chapter 11 federal bankruptcy law amid allegations by Tyson Foods Inc. that the ranch illegally charged the food company for 200,000 cattle that never existed. Court records released yesterday disclose that the family-run operation faces a mountain of debt that could have a major trickle-down economic impact on veterinarians, farmers, truckers and parts stores that support the Easterday operations. The legal case brought by Tyson describes a modern-day cattle rustling operation that was carried out on paper rather than by masked, horseback villains riding off with a stolen herd. Robbie Parke, manager of the state’s Livestock Inspection Program, said a check of records provided by Easterday Ranches Inc. to the state shows no evidence of a missing herd. “What we can see from our records is that the same number of cattle we inspected” arriving at Easterday’s Pasco feedlot match the records that Easterday provided indicating that it was shipped to slaughter. If Tyson Foods’ allegations of fraud are correct, the scam would be on an unprecedented scale, Parke said. Parke said that the state has launched an audit of all of Easterday’s records to try to rectify what it submitted versus the allegations Tyson has made.

The National Rifle Association’s former advertising agency, Ackerman McQueen Inc., has said it thinks the gun group’s chapter 11 case will be thrown out of bankruptcy court on the grounds it was filed in bad faith, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The comments came in papers Ackerman McQueen filed Friday in federal court in Texas, where it is embroiled in litigation with the NRA in a multipronged dispute stemming from the acrimonious end in 2019 of the agency’s decadeslong relationship with the gun-rights group. “The objectives of the reorganization plan are to utilize the bankruptcy code to continue streamlining costs and expenses, proceed with pending litigation in a coordinated and structured manner, and realize many financial advantages in furtherance of the NRA’s mission,” William A. Brewer III, counsel for the NRA said, responding to the bad faith allegation. The NRA’s former ad agency is listed as the group’s largest unsecured creditor in the Jan. 15 bankruptcy filing. If the chapter 11 proceeding moves ahead, Ackerman McQueen is in line for a spot on the official committee of unsecured creditors, a panel that will have considerable influence on what happens to the NRA. No committee has yet been named, however, and Ackerman McQueen said that action could come soon in the Dallas bankruptcy court to bring the chapter 11 proceeding to a swift halt.

In May 2017, ahead of a meeting of the Boy Scouts of America’s top leaders, a Girl Scouts of the USA employee emailed a counterpart at the Boy Scouts to ask about speculation it was considering admitting girls into the historically boys-only programs, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. For worried Girl Scouts executives, the reply was heartening. The Boy Scouts were discussing how to make their programs more accessible to families, but the organization still valued single-gender programs and wanted to “avoid any confusion that there may be consideration of coed scouting,” a Boy Scouts executive said in reply to the inquiry. The chief executives of both youth groups also spoke by phone, and the Girl Scouts came away reassured, according to internal emails released through litigation last month. Even before these exchanges, the Boy Scouts were running focus groups on how to appeal to girls, reviewing market analytics and forming a team to consider possible retaliation from the Girl Scouts in the event the organizations turned against each other, according to internal emails filed in federal court. At the time, Boy Scouts executives were debating the merits of raiding the Girl Scouts’ youngest members for recruits, court filings show. The push within the Boy Scouts to recruit girls came as it faced an increasing threat of legal exposure over past failures to protect boys from sexual predators in the volunteer ranks. Lawsuits from abuse survivors were piling up, and states including New York, California and New Jersey were moving closer to suspending statutes of limitations on abuse claims, allowing victims to sue institutions like the Boy Scouts regardless of when the alleged misconduct occurred. The Boy Scouts have said the organization believes victims and is “deeply sorry for the abuse suffered because perpetrators used our program to harm innocent children.”

Celebrity chef Chloe Coscarelli got the green light from a U.S. District Court judge to go after ESquared Hospitality LLC as part of a struggle over control of the By Chloe vegan restaurant brand that she co-founded but left behind after a dispute, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Judge Jesse Furman of the U.S. District Court in Manhattan issued an opinion and order on Thursday finding ESquared, one of By Chloe’s largest shareholders, liable for breaching an operating agreement with Ms. Coscarelli and awarded attorneys’ fees and costs to her, according to court documents. “This was a classic David v. Goliath battle,” said Ronald J. Schutz, a lawyer representing Chef Chloe LLC and Ms. Coscarelli, who gained fame after winning on the Food Network show “Cupcake Wars” in 2010. The judge’s order comes after an arbitrator found last year that By Chloe should reinstate Ms. Coscarelli’s 50% interests in a corporate affiliate and pay about $2.27 million for lawyers’ fees and costs. Judge Furman confirmed that ESquared was on the hook for the liability and fee portions of the arbitration awards, but put a pause on the case until March. However, the judge reserved judgment on whether to confirm or vacate the award portion that calls for reinstating her membership interest due to the pending bankruptcy proceeding of BC Hospitality Group, the restaurant chain’s parent company.