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Nearly 1,700 employees of a bankrupt coal mining company would get up to $17.3 million in back pay under a proposed class-action settlement, the Associated Press reported. Ned Pillersdorf, an attorney for the former employees of Milton, W. Va.-based Blackjewel, told KTWO Radio that workers could get checks early next year depending on the outcome of bankruptcy court hearings this fall. Blackjewel, which also has operations in Wyoming, all but completely shut down operations, including its vast Eagle Butte and Belle Ayr mines in northeastern Wyoming, after filing for bankruptcy in July 2019. The bankruptcy put about 600 employees in Wyoming and 1,100 in Appalachia out of work. 

Sexual abuse victims will have until next August to file a claim against the Buffalo (N.Y.) Diocese in federal bankruptcy proceedings, the Buffalo News reported. Chief Judge Carl L. Bucki of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Western District of New York ruled on Friday that the bar date for abuse victims to submit claims should be the same day that the extended Child Victims Act expires — Aug. 14, 2021. Judge Bucki also ruled against a request by the diocese to push the bankruptcy proceedings into mediated settlement talks. Judge Bucki said in his written ruling that such negotiations among the diocese, its insurers and its creditors would be premature because the diocese doesn’t know the full nature and extent of the abuse claims being brought against it and has yet to fully investigate and document historical insurance policies that were in place and might provide coverage on the claims. The diocese earlier had sued eight insurance carriers in bankruptcy court, and Judge Bucki’s decision means the litigation will move forward. The judge said he aimed to “advance essential exchanges of information” by ordering discovery to proceed, and he warned both parties that “now is not the time to procrastinate in working for a just and fair resolution of rights.”

The Aspen (Colo.) Club and Spa is out of bankruptcy and back into foreclosure, but this time owner Michael Fox said he and his team won’t be battling their creditors, the Aspen Times reported. Fox held an optimistic outlook about The Aspen Club’s prospects when it had been pushed into foreclosure before, as well as when it declared chapter 11 bankruptcy in May 2019. Last week, however, saw a judge dismiss the bankruptcy case in Denver on Sept. 1 and a creditor file documents in Pitkin County on Sept. 2 to foreclose on the east Aspen property. GPIF Aspen Club for the second time is attempting to foreclose on the Aspen Club. Attorneys at the law firm that filed foreclosure paperwork with the Pitkin County Clerk and Recorder’s Office could not be reached for comment Wednesday, but the documents state that Aspen Club owes $30 million to GPIF. GPIF Aspen Club is affiliated with Dallas investor Jeff Goff’s GP Invitation Funds and is associated with companies that own the Canyon Ranch luxury resorts in Tucson, Arizona, and Lenox, Massachusetts, and the Brown Palace hotel in Denver. Aspen Club attorneys previously argued in the bankruptcy proceedings that GPIF Aspen Club was making a play on the property, something GPIF’s legal team argued was not the case.

Survivors of clergy sexual abuse are seeking permission from a federal bankruptcy judge to file lawsuits alleging the Archdiocese of Santa Fe engaged in a “massive and fraudulent” scheme to divert up to $246 million in assets to avoid bigger payouts to hundreds of victims, the Albuquerque Journal reported. The request comes as efforts to mediate a resolution have stalled in the 18-month-old chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization of the state’s largest Catholic archdiocese. “Rather than fulfilling its fiduciary duty to maximize the assets of the estate for the benefit of creditors, the Archdiocese of Santa Fe’s primary goal is to protect the asset protection scheme it designed and implemented to put its assets out of the reach of the Survivors,” victims’ lawyers said in a court filing. Archdiocese attorneys deny any fraud in setting up two trusts in 2013 to hold millions of dollars in real estate and cash. They say that the trusts support the “religious, charitable and educational purposes” of its 94 parishes, the archdiocese and related entities. The archdiocese calls the fraud allegations “unfounded” and says millions would be needlessly spent on attorney fees if the claimants were allowed to file the lawsuits. Because the case is in Bankruptcy Court, Judge David T. Thuma would have to allow the lawsuits to be filed.

U.S. prosecutors charged a hedge-fund manager with fraud for suppressing a rival bid for a prized piece of bankrupt retailer Neiman Marcus Group Ltd., then trying to cover up the misconduct when it came to light, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Dan Kamensky, the founder of Marble Ridge Capital LP, was arrested yesterday and charged by federal prosecutors in New York with securities fraud, wire fraud, extortion and obstruction of justice in connection with his efforts to acquire shares in Neiman’s MyTheresa e-commerce business. Kamensky previously admitted to Justice Department bankruptcy watchdogs that he had used his pull with investment bank Jefferies LLC, where he was a client, to coerce it to scrap a competing offer for the MyTheresa shares so he could buy them himself for less. If convicted of all charges, Kamensky faces up to 50 years in prison. The Securities and Exchange Commission also sued Kamensky and Marble Ridge yesterday over his attempt to suppress competition for MyTheresa shares.

Lawyers for Harvey Weinstein’s bankrupt film studio yesterday presented a revised proposal to settle sexual misconduct claims against the disgraced former producer, but an attorney for accusers pledged to oppose the plan, Reuters reported. The $35.2 million proposal filed on Tuesday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware was financed by insurers and includes $17 million to settle sexual misconduct claims in various courts as well as a lawsuit by New York’s attorney general. Weinstein is serving a 23-year prison term in New York state following his Feb. 24 conviction for sexually assaulting a former production assistant and raping an actress. He has appealed the conviction. The latest plan provides less to accusers than the $18.9 million in the prior plan, which was rejected in July by U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein in Manhattan, who is overseeing a class action against Weinstein.

Under the supervision of a bankruptcy judge, the Boy Scouts of America has launched a nationwide advertising campaign to notify victims of decades-old sex abuse by Scout leaders that they have until Nov. 16 to seek compensation from a proposed fund, the Associated Press reported. Law firms say that they have already signed up thousands of clients to submit claims since the Boy Scouts filed for bankruptcy protection in February in the face of hundreds of lawsuits. Some lawyers predict the number of people filing claims will surge past 20,000 by the November deadline. “It’s frightening for the Boy Scouts, because they realize it’s going to take a lot of money to get out of this bankruptcy,” said Andrew Van Arsdale, a lawyer with a network called Abused in Scouting that says it has signed up more than 8,000 clients. The Boy Scouts' court-approved ad campaign began on Monday and is scheduled to run through Oct. 17, at an estimated cost of $6.8 million. It includes print, television, radio and online ads in English and Spanish that are expected to reach more than 100 million people, including more than 95 percent of the primary target audience of men 50 and older.