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The American Bankruptcy Institute (ABI) Subchapter V Task Force today released its “Preliminary Report of ABI’s Subchapter V Task Force on Maintaining the $7,500,000 Debt Cap for Subchapter V Eligibility” with findings to support permanently maintaining the eligibility limit of $7.5 million in aggregate noncontingent, liquidated debt for small businesses looking to reorganize under subchapter V. The Task Force’s Preliminary Report, which was also transmitted today to key members of Congress, is the result of nine months of public hearings, roundtable discussions and an industry survey inviting comment on Subchapter V. Read more.

FTX Trading Ltd. unveiled its latest proposal for returning billions of dollars to customers and creditors, kicking off a final round of potential squabbles about how best to end the bankruptcy case of the fraud-tainted crypto firm, Bloomberg News reported. The reorganization plan left some of the most important questions unanswered, including whether FTX will restart its defunct crypto exchange, how the company will estimate the value of some digital tokens and how much creditors can expect to get back. Next year, the plan will be sent to creditors for a vote — likely with key details added — before it goes to US Bankruptcy Judge John Dorsey for final approval. The major creditor and customer groups that have been involved in the chapter 11 case have agreed to the broad outlines of the plan. The payout plan calls for billions of dollars to be distributed as cash after much of the firm’s cryptocurrencies have been liquidated. Last month, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was convicted of orchestrating a massive fraud that led to the collapse of his FTX exchange. The company filed for bankruptcy last year after Bankman-Fried agreed to turn over control of his empire to restructuring professionals. Since then, the advisers have been tracking down assets and trying to untangle a complex web of debt owed to various creditors, including customers who put cash and crypto on the trading platform.

Creditors of 4E Brands say findings of a survey they commissioned support their case for Judge Marvin Isgur of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston to recuse himself from weighing in on a dispute over legal fees the maker of hand sanitizer paid its law firm, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The creditors are seeking the return to 4E Brands of fees it paid to the Jackson Walker law firm. The creditors say Isgur shouldn’t rule on their request because of his friendship and professional relationship of more than two decades with David R. Jones, a former bankruptcy judge who had been handling the company’s chapter 11 case. Results of the survey were made public late Wednesday after the creditors presented them in a hearing a day earlier before Chief Bankruptcy Judge Eduardo Rodriguez of the Southern District of Texas. At the hearing, Mark P. Jones, a public opinion survey analyst at Rice University, testified he provided 150 adults randomly selected across the Southern District of Texas with basic facts about the circumstances of the fee dispute without naming its parties, and then asked if a judge in the situation could be impartial. Roughly 80% of respondents said it was unlikely a judge could be impartial in the fee matter, said Jones, who isn’t related to the former judge. “They don’t know [Judge Isgur] as a person. Just looking at the objective facts in the case, these objective observers say this appears to be a case where Judge Isgur would not be able to be impartial,” said Jones. San Antonio-based 4E Brands filed for chapter 11 protection in February 2022, following the fallout from a recall of and lawsuits over its methanol-contaminated hand sanitizers.

Right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on Friday proposed a bankruptcy exit plan that offers to settle with Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims’ families by paying them at least $55 million over 10 years, Bloomberg News reported. The amount represents at least $30 million less than what the families had proposed, and is a fraction of the roughly $1.4 billion judges ruled they’re owed in defamation judgments against Jones related to to his lies that the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax. Jones filed for bankruptcy protection a year ago, after the judgments. Those who choose to settle with Jones would share in a pot of at least $5.5 million annually over 10 years, according to a chapter 11 plan Jones filed with the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas on Friday. The plan requires court approval. Beyond that annual minimum, family members who settle could receive all the disposable income from Jones’ bankrupt Infowars parent company, Free Speech System LLC, plus half of his own income over five years, and then a quarter of his income for the next five years, according to his plan. In exchange for settling with Jones, Sandy Hook victim families would receive faster payments but wouldn’t be able to continue to chase him down after his plan for the full worth of their litigation claims, according to the proposal.

Showfields is facing concerns over its bankruptcy financing. The landlord at its Brooklyn store in New York City on Dec. 5 filed an objection to the final approval of its debtor-in-possession financing, Retail Dive reported. The landlord in its filing said the proposed DIP financing transaction is “to be provided by an entity controlled by one or more insiders” at Showfields. A group of funders cited a similar concern in an objection filed at the end of November. The DIP Lender is listed as Showfields Investment LLC, with the loan agreement between the lender and Showfields for an amount of up to $2.5 million. “The motion does not disclose the identity of the insiders of [Showfields] who are members or owners of the DIP Lender,” the landlord’s objection says. “Without transparency, there remains the possibility that the true purpose of the DIP Financing (rather than obtaining financing from a different source) is to allow the DIP Lender to procure a roll-up of the DIP Lender’s prepetition debt, to the detriment of [Showfields’] estates and their creditors.” The landlord’s objection also alleges that Showfields did not “even attempt to satisfy their burden to demonstrate that the proposed DIP Financing” should be approved, such as not providing evidence to justify loan terms including the roll-up of over $1.6 million of the DIP Lender’s prepetition debt.

A process to sell the venture-capital arm of bankrupt SVB Financial, the former parent of Silicon Valley Bank, has fallen flat and creditors are now gearing up for a potential takeover of the business, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Two front-runners had been vying for SVB Capital: a duo of Anthony Scaramucci’s SkyBridge Capital and Atlas Merchant Capital, and San Francisco private-equity firm Vector Capital, the Wall Street Journal reported in September. Those bidders aren’t moving forward in the process, after SVB considered the bids to be too low. Instead a group of SVB Financial’s creditors is planning to take over the venture capital business for themselves, the people said. SVB Capital has around $10 billion in assets under management, including investments in venture capital funds, direct investments in tech companies, and a book of private loans. It was expected to fetch anywhere between $250 million and $500 million. Bankers at Centerview Partners were advising the parent company on the process. If new bidders don’t show up to buy the business, it would stay in the reorganized SVB Financial which could be controlled by creditors including Pacific Investment Management Co. and Davidson Kempner Capital Management once the bankruptcy is done.

Ebix Inc. has filed for bankruptcy protection in a North Texas court after defaulting on a $617 million loan, Bloomberg News reported. Several subsidiaries of Ebix have also filed for bankruptcy, according to a Dec 17. court filing. The law firm Sidney Austin LLP has been assigned as bankruptcy counsel, while Jefferies LLC will act as the investment banker to the proceedings, according to the filing. The filing says that each subsidiary and advisors will “conduct a fulsome marketing and sale process” for the assets of the company. The Texas court will hear the case on Dec. 19.

Madera hospital’s creditors want to be repaid through the bankruptcy process — including the hospital’s chief executive, the Fresno (Calif.) Bee reported. Last month, the hospital’s creditors submitted to a federal bankruptcy court their plan to liquidate the hospital, which, if approved by the court, would start the process of selling off the hospital assets to pay back millions owed to the creditors. Among the dozens of businesses, doctors and individuals who filed claims is Karen Paolinelli, Madera Community Hospital’s chief executive. Earlier this year, she filed a claim requesting payment for $200,658 in unpaid vacation time and unpaid self-funded insurance benefits. Paolinelli, who earns an annual salary of $359,668, according to the hospital’s latest available tax records, is a key player along with the hospital board of trustees in trying to find a partner to reopen the hospital, which ceased operations and closed its doors nearly a year ago. The hospital has just months to secure a reopening partner before creditors plan to vote on the liquidation plan in February. The liquidation plan filed by creditors allows for the hospital to pursue an agreement with a partner to reopen the hospital, subject to creditor and court approval.

A bankrupt Arizona youth-sports complex was sold in a transaction that will virtually wipe out bondholders, capping a collapse that marks one of the biggest municipal-debt defaults since the pandemic, Bloomberg News reported. The project was financed with $280 million of bonds issued through the Arizona Industrial Development Authority in 2020 and 2021, when still rock-bottom interest rates were fueling demand for high-yield debt. But the sprawling sports-field venue outside of Phoenix, known as Legacy Park, faltered as the pandemic upended the sports industry and interest in the facility proved lackluster. It subsequently defaulted on the debt and filed for bankruptcy in May. The saga highlighted the risk carried by bonds that are issued by government agencies on behalf of speculative businesses. Because the agencies aren’t on the hook if the ventures fail, they’re far more default-prone than typical municipal bonds backed by state and local tax revenues. As part of the bankruptcy, an affiliate of Rocky Mountain Resources on Thursday closed on the approximately $26 million purchase of the facility, a set of fields and courts for soccer, football, baseball, basketball and other sports. Most of the proceeds are going to building contractors for unpaid work. Bondholders will get $2.4 million in cash and an 11% equity stake in the new ownership entity.

Crypto firm SafeMoon filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy with the United States Bankruptcy Court of Utah State yesterday, the Crypto Times reported. Safemoon’s chapter 7 bankruptcy filing represents the voluntary liquidation of the company, which has an estimated asset value of $10 million to $50 million. The bankruptcy filing comes nearly a month after the U.S. SEC accused Safemoon of fraud and security law violations. On November 2, the SEC charged Safemoon executives for $200 million of project development funds, which they allegedly used for personal expenses and investments. Following the bankruptcy filing, the project’s SFM token dropped over 50% in the past 24 hours, with its market cap dropping to merely $18 million, which once peaked at $1 billion in February 2022, according to market data from Coinmarketcap.