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The Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego, under a siege of lawsuits from 438 people who say they were sexually abused by its clergy in past decades, said it plans to file for bankruptcy protection in November, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported. Such a move, spelled out in court papers filed this week and in a hearing in San Diego Superior Court yesterday, would halt all lawsuits against the diocese until the bankruptcy is complete and a universal settlement of all the claims is reached through the bankruptcy process. The diocese, which includes 96 parishes and serves some 1.3 million Roman Catholics in San Diego and Imperial counties, had said in February it was pondering filing for bankruptcy and would likely make a decision by late spring. It would mark the diocese’s second time filing for bankruptcy. It did so in 2007, eventually settling 148 claims of sexual abuse for $198 million.

BlockFi Inc. customers who tried to reclaim nearly $300 million in crypto after the company froze transfers last year don’t have a right to the digital assets, a judge ruled, handing potential losses to investors who held interest-bearing accounts, Bloomberg News reported. Bankruptcy Judge Michael Kaplan sided with the company and dismissed the objections of a group of customers, who argued that they retained rights to the coins even before they were moved into a secure digital wallet. Those who kept their assets in interest-bearing accounts gave up certain ownership rights, while those in custodial accounts did not. To protect themselves around the time of the freeze, users rushed to move coins into the safer digital wallets. BlockFi, which is based in Jersey City, filed for bankruptcy in November with plans to either sell or reorganize its business to repay creditors. The ruling is similar to those made in other crypto-company bankruptcies. A federal judge in New York ruled that Celsius Network owns the coins that users placed in interest-bearing accounts. Judge Kaplan found that BlockFi stopped all transfers on Nov. 10 at 8:15 p.m. Some customers tried to move their assets to safer custodial wallets afterward and got messages on the company’s app saying their transfers were complete — but those notices were wrong, Judge Kaplan ruled during a short court hearing yesterday.

Deposit withdrawals from U.S. banks following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank were concentrated in around 30 "super-regional" institutions in the $50 billion to $250 billion range, similar to SVB, New York Fed researchers concluded in a newly released study, Reuters reported. Deposits among thousands of "community and smaller regional banks ... were relatively stable by comparison" during March, the researchers found, with the largest, most systemically important firms receiving the deposits that left the super-regional group. Though there were concerns about a broader run on bank deposits after the failure of SVB on March 10 and Signature Bank on March 12, the NY Fed study points to what Fed officials themselves seemed to conclude early on: that the problems were focused in a discrete set of institutions. There were fears that banking sector weaknesses might touch off a wave of mergers that would wipe out smaller institutions - to the potential detriment, for example, of small business lending.

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has filed claims worth nearly $44 billion against the estate of bankrupt crypto exchange FTX and its affiliated entities, CoinDesk.com reported. According to bankruptcy filings dated April 27 and 28, the IRS put forth 45 claims against FTX companies, which include West Realm Shires (the legal entity of FTX.US), Ledger Holdings (the parent company of LedgerX and LedgerPrime) and Blockfolio, among others. The largest of the claims includes $20.4 billion and $7.9 billion claims against Alameda Research LLC and two claims totaling $9.5 billion against Alameda Research Holdings Inc. The claims are filed under the classification “Admin Priority,” which could allow the IRS’s claims to take precedence over the claims of other creditors in a bankruptcy case. Bankruptcy documents detailing the $20.4 billion claim against Alameda Research LLC reveal that the IRS is claiming about $20 billion in partnership taxes. The remaining amount of the claim includes millions in withheld income taxes and payroll taxes.

California's financial regulator failed to press leadership at Silicon Valley Bank to address known problems quickly enough before the lender imploded in March, according to a report released Monday in which the agency pledged to do better in the future, Reuters reported. The post-mortem by California's Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI) follows a scathing Federal Reserve report released last month in which the U.S. central bank blamed its own poor oversight, reckless bank management and loosened regulations for contributing to SVB's failure, which now ranks as the third-largest in U.S. history. Regulators have since pledged tougher oversight of the banking sector, while lawmakers have also complained that officials were too slow to address its poor risk management. Former SVB chief executive Gregory Becker is due to testify before Congress next week. According to the report released on Monday, DFPI played a supporting role, with primary oversight for SVB conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, which could devote more staff to supervision.

SVB Financial bondholders are raising their bets in a bankruptcy court battle with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. that they can defeat the agency’s claim to nearly $2 billion that Silicon Valley Bank’s parent company had on deposit with the bank when it failed, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The FDIC has maintained that it has no obligation to return the cash following its takeover of the bank, but SVB Financial’s $3.4 billion in bonds have rallied as some investors gain confidence that they could see more of a recovery by prevailing over the agency’s claim. When Silicon Valley Bank went under, the FDIC stepped in to make depositors whole, but it made an exception for the deposits of the bank’s parent company, SVB Financial. The parent filed for chapter 11 in March, touching off a legal battle with the FDIC over how to allocate losses stemming from Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse. The FDIC in court filings last week said it isn’t obliged to return the cash that SVB Financial deposited with its banking unit. Distressed-debt investors that scooped up the company’s bonds before and after its bankruptcy are looking to recover the deposited cash from the FDIC, which took an estimated $20 billion loss when Silicon Valley Bank went under. The FDIC has said it could use the nearly $2 billion in its capacity as the failed bank’s receiver to “set off” any legal claims and causes of action it has against the parent company.

Indicted FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has renewed his attacks on the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange’s law firm as he mounts his defense against a raft of fraud, money laundering and campaign-finance charges, Reuters reported. Bankman-Fried late Monday asked a judge to designate FTX’s current leadership and the exchange’s attorneys at law firm Sullivan & Cromwell as part of the “prosecution team” in the criminal case against him. FTX and Sullivan & Cromwell provided such extensive cooperation to the government that prosecutors had “effectively deputized the company to aid the prosecution,” Bankman-Fried argued. The 31-year-old ex-CEO is fighting charges that he stole billions of dollars in customer funds to plug losses at his Alameda Research hedge fund. Sullivan & Cromwell, a prominent Wall Street law firm with about 900 lawyers, represented FTX on transactions and regulatory matters before its collapse last year. The firm secured court approval in January to advise FTX in its bankruptcy, overcoming objections from some FTX creditors and U.S. lawmakers that its past work created a conflict of interest.

An attorney who represents survivors of sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of New Orleans bankruptcy is asking a newly appointed federal judge to toss out rulings from U.S. District Judge Greg Guidry, who recused himself from the case last month amid questions about his ties to the Roman Catholic church, NOLA.com reported. Judge Guidry, who as a district court judge was tasked with hearing appeals related to the bankruptcy case, recused himself April 28 after the Associated Press reported that he had donated $50,000 to local Catholic charitable organizations. In court documents filed Monday, New Orleans attorney Richard Trahant asked Guidry’s successor in the case, U.S. District Judge Barry Ashe, to vacate two rulings by Guidry because of the circumstances surrounding his recusal.

Facing hundreds of lawsuits over sexual abuse claims, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Oakland, Calif., filed for bankruptcy on behalf of the diocese, saying he hopes to “stabilize” the church’s finances and provide “just compensation” for victims, the Los Angeles Times reported. “It is important we take responsibility for the damage done so we can all move beyond this moment and provide survivors with some measure of peace,” Bishop Michael C. Barber said of the chapter 11 bankruptcy. “Sadly, for many, the pain caused by these horrific sins, no matter when they occurred, will never wash away, which is why we offer support to survivors and pray for their continued healing.” The diocese was facing more than 330 lawsuits alleging childhood sexual abuse mostly from the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s by priests, Barber said. Other California-based dioceses also facing a wave of lawsuits have either filed or pondered filing bankruptcies in the past few months, including dioceses in Santa Rosa, Sacramento and San Diego.