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An oil well site in the Permian Basin owned by a bankrupt shale producer has spewed polluting gases into the atmosphere for 10 months, despite being investigated by Texas regulators, according to an environmental group, Bloomberg News reported. Infrared video footage collected during multiple visits from November 2019 through September show “continuous intense and significant” emissions from faulty valves and tank hatches at MDC Energy LLC’s Pick Pocket location in West Texas, Earthworks said in a letter to two state regulatory agencies on Thursday. The group called on the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and the Texas Railroad Commission to rescind permits for MDC. It’s the latest example of mounting environmental concerns in the Permian Basin, where the extent of methane emissions from the oil and gas industry is largely unknown. Those concerns are being compounded by a collapse in crude prices that’s forced many producers into bankruptcy, sparking worries that they won’t be able to pay to maintain producing wells or properly plug ones that are abandoned. Methane emissions attract particular scrutiny because it’s a greenhouse gas far more potent than carbon dioxide. 

Bankruptcy Judge David Jones is urging a group of JCPenney Co. creditors, including Aurelius Capital Management, to submit a competing bid to buy the ailing retailer, Bloomberg News reported. The push comes as JCPenney, its biggest landlords and holders of most of its senior debt work to execute a bid that would rescue the company by October 16. The deal -- which would see Simon Property Group Inc. and Brookfield Property Partners buy the retailer’s operations and keep stores open -- was announced nearly a month ago, but no definitive agreements have been signed. A group of creditors, including Aurelius, that hold $162 million of term loans and other JCPenney debt attacked the proposed deal this week, calling it overly generous to other creditors. They said that they’re pulling together their own bid. Josh Sussberg, a Kirkland & Ellis attorney representing JCPenney, said any competing bid would have to top $2.47 billion to repay the retailer’s bankruptcy loan and first-lien debt, which would be forgiven as part of the existing offer. An attorney for the Aurelius group disagreed, arguing they could offer to buy a swath of JCPenney stores and still let Simon and Brookfield take over the operations.

Purdue Pharma LP, the OxyContin maker controlled by members of the wealthy Sackler family, is nearing an agreement to plead guilty to criminal charges as part of a broader deal to resolve U.S. Justice Department probes into its alleged role in fueling the nation’s opioid crisis, Reuters reported. Purdue lawyers and federal prosecutors are brokering a plea deal that could be unveiled as soon as within the next two weeks and include billions of dollars of financial penalties. In addition to the criminal case, U.S. prosecutors are negotiating a settlement of civil claims also carrying a financial penalty that allege unlawful conduct in Purdue’s handling of prescription painkillers. The Stamford, Conn.-based company is expected to face penalties exceeding $8 billion. They consist of a roughly $3.54 billion criminal fine, $2 billion criminal forfeiture and $2.8 billion civil penalty. They are unlikely to be paid in the near term, as the criminal fine and civil penalty are expected to be considered alongside other claims in Purdue’s bankruptcy proceedings and the company lacks necessary funds to fully repay all creditors. The tentative agreement would draw a line under Purdue’s criminal exposure for what prosecutors and state attorneys general have described as aggressive marketing of a highly addictive painkiller that minimized the drug’s potential for abuse and overdosing. Over the years, Purdue reaped billions of dollars in profits from its opioids, enriching Sackler family members and funneling illegal kickbacks to doctors and pharmacies, federal prosecutors and state attorneys general have alleged. The company now faces thousands of lawsuits seeking damages to address a public health crisis that has ravaged U.S. communities.

A group of JCPenney Co. lenders criticized the way the company plans to parcel out proceeds from its proposed sale to two mall owners and a larger group of lenders that have been steering the retailer’s bankruptcy, <em>WSJ Pro Bankruptcy</em> reported. The dispute complicates Penney’s planned chapter 11 exit and highlights a conflict that predates its pandemic-driven bankruptcy filing in May. The smaller group of lenders, led by Aurelius Capital Management LP, said Penney’s proposed breakup would siphon away hundreds of millions of dollars from all of the company’s lenders and funnel the bulk of the money to a subset among them. The retailer should also be subject to a competitive bidding process, which doesn’t appear to be planned, according to papers filed Monday by the holdout lenders group in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Corpus Christi, Texas. Mall owners Simon Property Group Inc. and Brookfield Property Partners LP reached a tentative deal in September to buy Penney for $800 million in cash and debt, including the real estate behind most of the company’s stores, pulling it back from the brink of liquidation. The larger group of Penney lenders agreed to buy the remaining stores in return for forgiving some of Penney’s $5 billion in debt, and lease them to Simon and Brookfield.

Buffalo Diocese (N.Y.) officials, citing a sharp decline in donations and an estimated $4 million per year in bankruptcy costs, are pleading with a federal judge to speed up its reorganization by reducing the time childhood sex abuse victims can file claims and appointing a mediator to negotiate a settlement, the Buffalo News reported. Diocese officials told Chief Judge Carl L. Bucki that the diocese is strapped for cash and no longer provides financial support for 19 programs and ministries, including outreach to youth and migrants, lifelong faith formation, evangelization efforts and aid to Catholic elementary schools. The diocese discontinued tuition subsidies for 34 Catholic schools, which in the past have received as much as $4 million from the diocese, Sister Mary McCarrick, diocese chief operating officer, wrote in a letter to Bucki. McCarrick said some schools “are in a very real danger of closing” because of the loss of diocese funding. Bishop Edward B. Scharfenberger last month appointed a task force to study consolidations of churches and schools. The diocese also has reduced spending for campus ministry, its outreach to deaf people, its Office of Worship and support for priest retirement homes, among other programs, according to court papers.

More than two-thirds of the victims who signed up to participate in a fund set up by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Camden to compensate survivors of clergy sex abuse were left with their claims unresolved and diminished expectations of seeing a payout, according to previously unreleased information included in the diocese’s bankruptcy filings last week, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. Now, 141 people who were encouraged by Bishop Dennis J. Sullivan to come forward and recount their trauma for fund administrators last year must join a line of other creditors — including banks, independent contractors, and lawsuit plaintiffs — to jostle in court over a limited pot of money that will be divided up by the bankruptcy court. In announcing the move last Thursday to become the first diocese in New Jersey to seek chapter 11 protection from creditors, church leaders said that their intent was not to dodge their responsibility to abuse victims, but rather to ensure a future for the institution that serves South Jersey’s nearly half-million Catholics. “The diocese does not seek bankruptcy relief to hide the truth or deny any person a day in court,” wrote the Rev. Robert E. Hughes, the diocese’s vicar general, in a declaration filed with the bankruptcy judge. But “beyond its obligation to creditors, the diocese has a fundamental and moral obligation to the Catholic faithful it serves [and] the greater community.… In order to do this, the diocese must survive.”

A judge ordered the bankrupt operator of New York Sports Clubs and Lucille Roberts gyms to stop charging New York customers who submitted cancellation requests or whose primary gyms remain closed, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The ruling by Judge Debra A. James of the Supreme Court of New York came after New York’s attorney general filed a lawsuit last week accusing Town Sports International Holdings Inc. of charging monthly fees to customers despite coronavirus-related closures. “This order stops New York Sports Clubs and Lucille Roberts dead in their tracks and halts these health clubs from continuing to unlawfully charge many of their members,” Attorney General Letitia James said. James began investigating the gym operator’s billing practices in March when Town Sports didn’t freeze memberships after the state mandated fitness centers to shut down. Town Sports then resumed the charges on Sept. 1. As of last week, the attorney general’s office had received nearly 1,850 complaints about the company. A restraining order issued Friday has blocked the company from charging or attempting to charge any dues, fines or penalties to customers in New York who have submitted cancellation requests since March 16 and to those whose main gyms remain closed.

The Diocese of Camden, N.J., has filed for bankruptcy, citing revenue losses because of the millions it paid out to clergy abuse victims and the pandemic, the Associated Press reported. The filing yesterday comes after New Jersey eased its civil statute of limitations in 2019 to make it easier for victims of alleged sexual abuse at the hands of clergy to sue for damages. In addition to the expanded statute of limitations, the outbreak of the coronavirus has only made things harder for churches, who rely on in-person donations from Mass-goers. “If it were just the pandemic, or just the costs of the Victims Compensation Program, we could likely weather the financial impact; however, the combination of these factors has made that impracticable,” Bishop Dennis Sullivan in a statement posted on the diocese website titled “Reorganization.” The state attorney general launched a criminal probe of the clergy abuse scandal in 2018 after a Pennsylvania grand jury report uncovered that more than 1,000 children had been abused over decades by about 300 priests. The investigation is still pending. New Jersey's Catholic dioceses set up a victim's compensation fund for people abused by clergy. The fund closed to new applications earlier this year, paying out or authorizing the payment of about $11 million. The Diocese of Camden has nearly 500,000 members across 62 parishes in southern New Jersey's Atlantic, Camden, Cape May, Cumberland, Gloucester and Salem counties. The bankruptcy announcement does not affect schools, parishes or pension plans, the statement said. 

New York Attorney General Letitia James sued the New York Sports Club and Lucille Roberts gym chains for charging dues to members for facilities that remain closed due to the coronavirus pandemic and failing to honor cancellation requests, Bloomberg News reported. James filed suit yesterday in state court in Manhattan against Town Sports International Holdings Inc., which owns both chains. The attorney general is seeking a court order blocking the company for charging for shuttered facilities or canceled memberships. The gym chains came under fire from James earlier this year for charging April dues despite being shut down by Governor Andrew Cuomo in March. They agreed to stop billing members while they were closed, give credits to those who were charged and allow customers to cancel their memberships. But James said they resumed charging members Sept. 1 even though some gyms remain closed. They have also not offered the promised credits for the dues that were charged in March and April, according to the New York suit. Town Sports filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier this month, saying that it was unable to keep up with debt payments after it was forced to shut its gyms for months. The company is seeking to close certain locations permanently, depending on the outcome of talks with landlords, and has support from its lenders to pursue a sale of its business. 

A bankruptcy judge has extended until next year a shield that protects Purdue Pharma LP’s owners from litigation, saying the buffer is needed to facilitate negotiations with states on a potential multibillion-dollar settlement over the opioid crisis, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. A committee of opioid victims recently had sought to lift the injunction and allow lawsuits to proceed against members of the Sackler family who own Purdue, maker of the powerful opioid OxyContin. Judge Robert Drain of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in White Plains, N.Y., yesterday granted Purdue’s request to extend the injunction until March. The injunction covers the company as well as its owners. “The parties have an incredible opportunity at this moment to move forward quickly, to end these cases and get the money out to abate the opioid crisis,” Judge Drain said. “They should do it, and anything that distracts them from that process is not worth the candle.” Thousands of lawsuits accusing Purdue of helping fuel the opioid crisis were paused when the company filed for bankruptcy in September 2019.