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A California lawmaker has introduced a bill aimed at making PG&E Corp. a publicly owned utility, a year after liabilities from wildfires traced back to some of its equipment pushed the power producer into bankruptcy, Reuters reported. “Today I’m introducing legislation to force PG&E to become a publicly owned utility,” California State Senator Scott Wiener (D) said yesterday, adding that it was time for a new approach at the utility company. The power producer said on Saturday it had submitted an updated reorganization plan including a new board of directors and new roles aimed at addressing concerns raised by California Governor Gavin Newsom (D). Newsom last month rejected an earlier PG&E reorganization plan saying it lacked major changes in governance and tougher safety enforcement mechanisms mandated under a recent state wildfire statute.

PG&E Corp. said that it will overhaul its board of directors, bring in safety experts and create regional operating units as part of a broad reorganization proposal aimed at winning state approval for its bankruptcy exit, Bloomberg News reported. PG&E detailed the organizational changes in filings on Friday with the California Public Utilities Commission and U.S. bankruptcy court. The company will seek new board members with extensive safety experience and wants half of its directors to reside in California. The utility will also appoint an independent safety adviser who would take over after the term of its federal probation monitor ends, according to the filings. The revised restructuring proposal comes as PG&E makes a final push to emerge from the largest utility bankruptcy in U.S. history. The company filed for chapter 11 last year facing $30 billion in liabilities from wildfires blamed on its equipment, and California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) has threatened a state takeover if the utility doesn’t take aggressive enough steps to reform itself. “Under our Plan, the company will emerge from chapter 11 as a reimagined utility with an enhanced safety structure, improved operations, and a board and management team focused on providing the safe, reliable, and clean energy our customers expect and deserve,” said PG&E Chief Executive Officer Bill Johnson.

A California federal bankruptcy judge on Thursday approved a chapter 11 plan for Sedgwick LLP that includes a settlement clawing back a total of $1.9 million from 47 former partners, over one ex-partner’s objection to a provision barring non-settling partners from bringing claims against their colleagues who settled, the American Lawyer reported. Bankruptcy Judge Hannah Blumenstiel of the Northern District of California signed off on the agreement between the defunct firm, its creditors’ committee and the settling partners after a 45-minute hearing, in which she admonished the resisting partner’s attorney for introducing arguments that were absent from her recent filing on the matter. Sedgwick initially filed for chapter 11 protection at the start of October 2018. The settlement approved Thursday returns more money to creditors than an earlier proposed clawback deal, which covered $1.595 million paid to 45 partners during the firm’s 2017 collapse.

California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) yesterday reiterated his threat for a state takeover of PG&E Corp. if the bankrupt utility falls short in the changes he wants, Bloomberg News reported. At an event in Sacramento, Newsom said that his administration has laid out “detailed terms” on what a takeover would look like and is working on it with legislative leaders in case it’s needed. The San Francisco-based company faces a June deadline to exit court protection to be able to tap a state fund for fire damages, and Newsom has raised concerns about its bankruptcy plan. “It has to to be completely reimagined, completely transformed company,” Newsom said on the one-year anniversary of the utility’s bankruptcy filing. “If PG&E can’t do it, we’ll do it for them.” Still, the state is making progress in talks with the company, Newsom said. “We are meeting with PG&E on a daily basis,” he said. “We are making progress on governance. We are making progress on finance.” If a deal can’t be reached within the next few weeks, Newsom will lay out a detailed plan for a takeover, he said.

OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP is the unnamed company that surfaced in criminal charging documents filed earlier this week in a probe of illegal kickbacks from drugmakers, Reuters reported. Purdue Pharma, which faces U.S. Justice Department probes and sprawling litigation over allegations it played a central role in the deadly U.S. opioid crisis, faces new scrutiny in connection with a case Vermont federal prosecutors unveiled on Monday against a San Francisco electronic health records vendor. The vendor allegedly received a roughly $1 million illegal kickback from an opioid company identified in the documents as “Pharma Co. X.” The unnamed company is Purdue Pharma. Purdue was not criminally charged in the case or accused of wrongdoing. Members of the wealthy Sackler family who control Purdue but no longer sit on its board have also been named in litigation and issued a separate statement. “Throughout their time on the board since 2007, the directors were regularly and consistently assured that the company was in full compliance with all legal and regulatory requirements, and so we would be profoundly disappointed if any of those assurances turned out not to be true,” they said.

Federal antitrust regulators are probing a possible deal between a major U.S. dairy cooperative and Dean Foods Co., the bankrupt milk-processing giant, as the dairy industry realigns after decades of declining milk consumption, the Wall Street Journal reported. Officials and people in the industry said the Justice Department is discussing with farmers and retailers the potential impact of such a deal on milk prices and competition in the dairy business, as Dean explores asset sales after filing for bankruptcy. Dean, the top U.S. milk processor by sales, sought chapter 11 protection in November after struggling for years with slumping demand. That month, the Texas-based company and Dairy Farmers of America, the largest U.S. dairy cooperative by membership, said they were in deal discussions, which have continued. Some farm groups have raised concerns that a tie-up between Dean and DFA might lead to an excessive concentration of milk buyers in parts of the country. As U.S. milk consumption has fallen about 40 percent over the last four decades, fluid-milk production has shifted to a smaller number of bigger plants. In 1980, 1,066 plants across the U.S. processed an average of 50.1 million pounds of milk annually, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. By 2018, there were 459 plants each producing an average of 103.9 million pounds of milk. The plant closures and consolidation have challenged dairy farmers, forcing some to find new buyers and leading others to close their milking parlors. The Agriculture Department reported about 37,500 U.S. dairy herds at the end of 2018, down from about 57,000 in 2008.

La Senza, the Canadian brand that L Brands sold to a private equity firm last year, is facing an uncertain future, ChainStoreAge.com reported. MGF Sourcing US, an apparel and footwear manufacturer, and two other third-party creditors have filed an involuntary chapter 7 bankruptcy petition in Delaware against the lingerie brand. The suit contends that La Senza has not paid its debts during the past year, which amount to an estimated $42 million for goods that have been shipped. L Brands, the parent company of Victoria’s Secret, agreed to sell La Senza to an affiliate of private equity firm Regent LP at the end of 2018. At that time, there were some 126 La Senza company-owned stores in the U.S. and Canada. According to the company’s website, there are more than 340 La Senza stores around the world.