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Commercial chapter 11 filings increased 72 percent to 6,569 in calendar year 2023 from the previous year’s total of 3,819, according to data provided by Epiq AACER, the leading provider of U.S. bankruptcy filing data. Overall commercial filings increased 19 percent to 25,627 from the 21,479 registered the previous year. Subchapter V elections within chapter 11 also experienced a substantial increase in calendar year 2023, as the 1,939 filings represented a 45 percent increase from the 1,334 recorded in 2022. Total bankruptcy filings in calendar year 2023 were 445,186, an 18 percent increase from the 378,390 registered during calendar year 2022. While representing a substantial year-over-year increase, total bankruptcy filings remain lower than the pre-pandemic total of 757,816 recorded in CY2019.

Tesla Inc. says a former battery factory worker who publicly criticized the company should be barred from using bankruptcy to avoid paying a $425,000 debt from a yearslong legal feud with Elon Musk, Bloomberg News reported. The company on Tuesday urged a bankruptcy judge not to let Martin Tripp off the hook after he acknowledged violating trade secret laws and confidentiality agreements. The filing is the latest twist in a dispute dating back to 2018, when Tripp anonymously told the news media that Tesla was wasting a significant amount of raw materials at its Nevada Gigafactory. That ended up getting him fired, and escalated into an exchange of insults and lawsuits with Musk and Tesla. Tripp agreed to pay $400,000 in 2020 to settle Tesla’s suit accusing him of stealing confidential data. He’d also been ordered to pay Tesla $25,000 in sanctions for posting court documents online in violation of a judge’s order. Tripp had been making payments to Tesla until late September, when he filed for bankruptcy, according to Tuesday’s filing.

Rudolph W. Giuliani filed for bankruptcy yesterday, a day after a federal judge ordered him to start paying the $148 million in damages he owes to two former Georgia election workers for spreading lies that they had tried to steal the 2020 election from Donald J. Trump, the New York Times reported. Giuliani also owes millions of dollars in legal fees as well as unpaid state and federal income taxes, according to the filing. Last week, a jury ordered Mr. Giuliani to pay two former Georgia election workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, $148 million for baseless accusations he had made about them cheating when they were counting votes in Fulton County, Ga., on Nov. 3, 2020. On Wednesday, the judge overseeing that case, Beryl A. Howell, ordered Mr. Giuliani to start paying the two women immediately out of concern that he might “conceal his assets” if he were allowed to wait the typical 30 days. In total, Mr. Giuliani said in the chapter 11 filing that he owes creditors $152.7 million as well as other potential damages he faces in pending lawsuits. Mr. Giuliani owed more than $700,000 in back federal taxes and almost $300,000 in delinquent state taxes. His bankruptcy filing said he also owed about $1.3 million to a law firm that has represented him in various criminal investigations in recent years. He owes another $387,000 to a firm that has shepherded him through disbarment proceedings in New York and Washington stemming from his efforts to keep Mr. Trump in power.

Atlas Biologicals Inc., a Fort Collins, Colo.-based company that produces fetal bovine serum, has filed an adversarial action in the Thomas Kutrubes personal bankruptcy, seeking to prevent the discharge of a court-ordered penalty in Kutrubes’ bankruptcy, the Loveland (Colo.) Reporter-Herald reported. Kutrubes is the founder of Peak Serum Inc., a company formed in 2014 to compete against Atlas, where Kutrubes began his career in 2005. Fetal bovine serum is a byproduct of meatpacking and is derived from cow fetuses; it is used worldwide in biological research and cell generation. In 2016, Atlas determined that Kutrubes had stolen customer information and had misrepresented his relationship with Atlas to customers. Atlas sued and won a $2.05 million judgment. Kutrubes appealed and lost. Kutrubes and Peak Serum filed for chapter 11 protection — Peak Serum in 2019 and Kutrubes in 2020. The personal bankruptcy filing showed assets of $904,109 and liabilities of $3.6 million, including the judgment that he listed as disputed. The chapter 11 action was converted to chapter 7 liquidation Sept. 20, 2023. In chapter 7, a trustee sells eligible property and pays whatever debts can be covered by it.

The "National Guard and Reservists Debt Relief Extension Act of 2023" (H.R. 3315) was signed into law yesterday by President Biden after passing the Senate on Monday and the House of Representatives on Dec. 11. The bipartisan measure was reintroduced on May 15 by Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) to provide the same means-test treatment under chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code for guard members and reservists who were recently federally deployed as that of active duty servicemembers. The legislation exempts for an additional four-year period, from the application of the means-test presumption of abuse under chapter 7, qualifying members of reserve components of the Armed Forces and members of the National Guard who, after September 11, 2001, are called to active duty or to perform a homeland defense activity for not less than 90 days.