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South Jersey craft beer stalwart Flying Fish Brewing Co. has filed for bankruptcy protection just months after a deal fell through that would have seen the brand sold to Cape May Brewing Co., the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The Somerdale, N.J.-based Flying Fish listed $1.3 million in assets and $9.3 million in liabilities in its chapter 11 petition, which was filed on Thursday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New Jersey. The company is owned by Elk Lake Capital, a capital investment firm in Scranton that acquired Flying Fish in 2016. Elk Lake Capital is also listed in the bankruptcy filing as Flying Fish’s biggest creditor, with unsecured claims of about $4.2 million. Celtic Capital Corp., a financial services firm in Calabasas, Calif., has nearly $4.1 million in unsecured claims with Flying Fish, according to the filing. Overall, the company listed $1.3 million in assets, about $500,000 coming from brewing machinery and equipment. It claimed more than $9.2 million in liabilities.

Consumer data company Near Intelligence Inc. has filed for chapter 11 protection less than a year after going public, the Los Angeles Business Journal reported. The Pasadena, Calif.-based company will sell nearly all of its assets to credit institution Blue Torch Finance LP and plans to continue normal operations through the bankruptcy proceedings. Near went public in March via a business combination with special acquisition company KludeIn I Acquisition Corp., a deal that was based on Near’s pre-money enterprise valuation of $575 million at the time. The company later received notice in mid-November that, as a result of failing to file its third-quarter financial report in a timely manner, it was not in compliance with the Nasdaq’s listing rules. It was officially suspended from trading on the Nasdaq on Dec. 27 and is now trading on OTC Markets Group under the ticker “NIRLQ.” Its stock closed on Thursday at less than 1 cent a share. Near was founded by former chief executive Anil Mathews in 2012 and uses a combination of consumer data and artificial intelligence to provide partnering businesses with insights into consumer behavior and trends. Mathews told the Business Journal in April that about 87% of its income is recurring and comes from licensing its products. However, Near stated in its chapter 11 filing that it had struggled in recent years to raise sufficient capital to cover operational costs and that recent enactment of stricter data-privacy regulations have changed the industry and made it increasingly difficult for data-intelligence providers to gather information. The company accrued approximately $100 million in net losses in 2022.

JER Investors Trust Inc., a mortgage REIT, filed for bankruptcy in the latest sign of distress in commercial real estate, Bloomberg News reported. The real estate investment trust — which counts private equity firm C-III Capital Partners among its top shareholders — owes more than $100 million to creditors, but has less than $50 million in assets, according to a chapter 11 petition filed in Wilmington, Del., on Friday. JER Investors manages a portfolio of mortgage backed securities and other types of debt tied to the commercial real estate market, according to the company’s website. As interest rates climbed this year, commercial properties came under pressure, especially firms that lost tenants during the pandemic as office-tower workers stayed home. Earlier this month, mall owner Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust filed for bankruptcy for the second time in three years. In November, the coworking behemoth WeWork Inc. filed for bankruptcy with plans to cut back a sprawling real estate portfolio that spanned 39 countries. C-III Capital owns at least 8.4% of JER Investors, according to court papers. JER also owes C-III nearly $20 million, the bankruptcy filing shows. The Bank of New York Mellon Trust is owed $93.9 million, according to the chapter 11 petition.

U.S. prosecutors said they do not plan to conduct a second trial against Sam Bankman-Fried, who was convicted last month of stealing from customers of his now-bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency exchange, Reuters reported. In a letter filed on Friday night in federal court in Manhattan, prosecutors said the "strong public interest" in a prompt resolution of their case against the 31-year-old former billionaire outweighed the benefits of a second trial. Prosecutors said that interest "weighs particularly heavily here," given that Bankman-Fried's scheduled March 28, 2024, sentencing will likely include orders of forfeiture and restitution for victims of his crimes. Jurors on Nov. 2 convicted Bankman-Fried on all seven fraud and conspiracy counts he faced. Prosecutors had accused him of looting $8 billion from FTX customers out of sheer greed. Bankman-Fried had faced six additional charges that had been severed from his first trial, including campaign finance violations, conspiracy to commit bribery, and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business. He had been extradited in December 2022 from the Bahamas, where FTX was based, to face the seven earlier charges.

E-commerce company Parts ID filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Monday and said it plans to continue normal operations, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Parts ID added it expects common stockholders are unlikely to receive any payments and existing securities would be canceled when its reorganization plan becomes effective. The company’s shares fell 43%, to 5 cents, before a trading halt. The stock is down about 95% this year. Parts ID expanded beyond its automotive focus, launching marketplaces in categories including boats, motorcycles and campers. The company said in a securities filing Tuesday that it entered a credit agreement on Dec. 19 with Fifth Star.

Reusable sticky note startup mcSquares, which also does business as M.C. Squares, filed for chapter 11 protection just days before Christmas, the Denver Business Journal reported. Thornton, Colo.-based mcSquares sells reusable home, office and classroom products such as sticky notes, planners, calendars and to-do lists. According to the filing, the company will propose a reorganization plan that suits the best interests of its creditors. A plan has not yet been filed with the District of Colorado bankruptcy court. According to the Dec. 22 bankruptcy filing, mcSquares owes between 20 and 49 creditors approximately $3.34 million. The filing also states that mcSquares has roughly $906,000 in assets and about $5.7 million in net operating losses.

Former remodeling and construction company owner Leighton “Joe” Wood, who allegedly defrauded dozens of customers, has been using bankruptcy protection to avoid accountability to those very customers, the bankruptcy case’s trustee claimed in a Dec. 18 filing, WJHL.com reported. “The Debtors’ strategy is unfair to their many creditors, who have been thus far deprived due process in this case, and is an abuse of the Bankruptcy process,” Trustee Gerard Vetter wrote in a motion to convert the case to a chapter 7 bankruptcy. Vetter’s filing also reveals for the first time that Wood has a criminal defense attorney and is the subject of a federal criminal investigation. It says that Wood’s attorney, Lynette Byrd, “met with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and federal agents on December 5, 2023” and that she and prosecutor Mac Heavener, an assistant U.S. attorney, “are actively engaged in discussions about possible resolution of the criminal investigation.” Leighton Wood and his wife, Cameron Wood, filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in South Carolina’s federal bankruptcy court Oct. 21. The filing came two months after the Tennessee attorney general filed a civil suit on behalf of dozens of victims who the state claimed were bilked to the tune of “millions of dollars” when Wood failed to complete home renovation work those customers had paid for.

Party City Holdco Inc.’s bankrupt balloon-manufacturing affiliate, Anagram Holdings, is close to striking an agreement with the retail chain and won court permission to sell the unit to lenders, Bloomberg News reported. Anagram lawyer Nicholas Baker said during a court hearing Friday that the firm is optimistic it will be able to finalize the settlement with its parent company in the coming days. The sale and proposed agreement with Party City would resolve disputes between the companies and allow Anagram to continue operating without interruption, Baker said. A group of Anagram lenders agreed to take over the balloon business in exchange for forgiving about $168 million in debt. Lenders are also offering to continue employing all of Anagram’s current employees, Baker said. Judge Marvin Isgur said on Friday that he was comfortable approving the lender sale relatively soon after Anagram filed bankruptcy because the deal isn’t opposed by other creditors or company stakeholders. Silver Point Capital, a major shareholder of Party City, criticized the Anagram sale when the company filed chapter 11 last month. But Silver Point didn’t challenge the sale at Friday’s hearing.

A Texas bankruptcy judge recommended against a government request to move a case challenging fees paid to a law firm that were approved by a former judge who was in an undisclosed relationship with one of the firm’s lawyers, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The U.S. Trustee, a division of the Justice Department that functions as a watchdog for the nation’s bankruptcy system, is challenging roughly $13 million of fees earned by Texas law firm Jackson Walker in 17 bankruptcy cases over which former bankruptcy judge David R. Jones presided. One of Jackson Walker’s partners, Elizabeth Freeman, lived with Jones during that time and owned a house with him in the Houston area, which neither Jones, Freeman nor Jackson Walker revealed at the time. Jones resigned from the bench in October after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals started an investigation and filed a complaint stating it had found probable cause of misconduct. Southern District of Texas Chief Bankruptcy Judge Eduardo Rodriguez, who consolidated the government’s 17 motions to transfer the Jackson Walker fee matters under his watch, said the request didn’t meet the standard that allows such a move. He determined the motions weren’t filed in a timely manner, and that the trustee didn’t establish that the transfer would benefit the progress of the 17 bankruptcy cases. Instead, Judge Rodriguez said, the matter should stay in his court. This consolidated approach would mostly alleviate the concerns over efficiency raised by the government and Jackson Walker, the judge said.