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Cruise operator Hornblower has filed for bankruptcy, saying its overnight cruise business hasn’t rebounded from the COVID-19 pandemic, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Private-equity firm Strategic Value Partners, an existing Hornblower creditor, has agreed to acquire majority ownership of the business in a proposed debt-for-equity swap that is part of a larger restructuring agreement that requires approval from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston. SVP will also “provide a significant equity investment in the business,” Hornblower said in a statement. Private-equity firm Crestview Partners, which has been majority owner of the company, will keep a minority interest. SVP and Crestview also will provide $121 million in new-money financing. SVP will get four seats on a new five-person board, with Crestview getting the remaining one. Hornblower said the chapter 11 is expected to help cut the company’s debt load by $720 million. The company enters bankruptcy with assets of up to $1 billion, and liabilities of roughly $1.2 billion. Its debt load rose from $630 million in 2019 as the business tried to maintain liquidity during the pandemic.

Louise Blouin, who grew up in a small town in Quebec, rose to the top tiers of society in New York and London a little more than two decades ago. She made a name for herself as an art-world mogul and a host of heady salons and glittering parties filled with artists, scientists, dignitaries and billionaires. But her time as a power player seemed to come to an end on Feb. 13, when she entered a bankruptcy courtroom in Central Islip, N.Y., the New York Times reported. Having informed the judge in December that she could not afford a lawyer, she arrived in the company of her third husband, Mathew Kabatoff. The judge, Alan S. Trust, heard hours of testimony as he considered whether or not he would approve the sale of La Dune, the beachfront estate that Blouin had once hoped to sell for no less than $115 million. The property had been on and off the market for several years before an anonymous bidder struck an agreement to buy it for nearly $89 million at an auction at Sotheby’s Auction House in Manhattan on Jan. 24. In court last week, Blouin did her best to thwart a sale at that price. The price tag for La Dune fell millions short of the debt on the property, according to John Isbell, a lawyer who worked on the deal on behalf of the real estate lender Bay Point Advisors.

The families of Sandy Hook school shooting victims voted overwhelmingly in favor of a plan to wrap up Alex Jones’ bankruptcy proceedings by liquidating the right wing talk show host’s assets, Bloomberg Law reported. Jones’ general unsecured creditors — comprised mostly of Sandy Hook families holding about $1.5 billion in defamation judgments against the famed conspiracy theorist — voted 100% in favor of a chapter 11 plan that would methodically liquidate and redistribute his property and cash, while preserving potential legal actions against parties affiliated with Jones and his Infowars program. An official committee appointed to represent Jones’ unsecured creditors notified the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas on Feb. 16 that of 23 liquidation plan ballots distributed to creditors, it received 21 back — all supporting the committee’s liquidation proposal. The vote indicates the creditors’ preference over a competing plan submitted by Jones that would allow him to reorganize by preserving parts of his media empire and paying the group at least $5.5 million a year over 10 years. His plan would provide additional creditor recoveries out of disposable income from Jones’ bankrupt Infowars parent company, portions of Jones’ personal income, and the proceeds from selling various personal assets.

The U.S. Justice Department’s bankruptcy watchdog accused Sorrento Therapeutics lawyers of submitting false paperwork to justify the company’s chapter 11 filing in Houston, saying that the mailbox location it cited as a principal place of business was created only hours ahead of its bankruptcy, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Kevin Epstein, the U.S. trustee for the Southern District of Texas, said that on Feb. 12, 2023, a lawyer for Sorrento rented a mailbox at a UPS in the Woodlands, a Houston suburb, on behalf of Scintilla Pharmaceuticals, a Sorrento subsidiary. Both Sorrento and Scintilla are based in San Diego. Scintilla wasn’t registered or licensed to do business in Texas, Epstein said. It had been dormant since about 2019, with no employees or business operations, and its only asset was a $60,000 bank balance that Sorrento had wired to it days before the bankruptcy filing, he said. Ten hours after establishing the mailbox, Scintilla filed its chapter 11 petition in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston stating that the mailbox was its principal place of business, while still listing its San Diego office as its mailing address, court records show. Sorrento, Scintilla’s parent company, then filed its own chapter 11 petition in Houston. The Scintilla petition was signed by Henry Ji, Sorrento’s chief executive, and Matthew Cavenaugh, a partner at the Texas law firm Jackson Walker. Veronica Polnick, another partner at Jackson Walker, rented the mailbox on behalf of Scintilla, Epstein said.

Radio and podcast company Audacy Inc. received court approval on Tuesday to emerge from bankruptcy and hand ownership to creditors including Soros Fund Management, Bloomberg News reported. Audacy — the second-largest radio broadcaster in the US — will slash nearly $1.7 billion of debt from its balance sheet through its restructuring plan, according to court papers. Existing shareholders will be wiped out while high-ranking creditors, including the investment firm founded by billionaire George Soros, will be repaid with stock in the restructured company. Audacy’s bankruptcy plan was unanimously approved by the company’s senior lenders, according to Caroline Reckler, an attorney with Latham & Watkins who represents the company. A single shareholder objected to the plan during the court hearing on Tuesday, arguing that liquidating the company would provide a better recovery for equity holders. Despite the shareholder objection, Bankruptcy Judge Chris Lopez approved the proposal during the hearing in Houston. “The liquidation analysis shows that the value never gets to equity,” he said.

A bankruptcy judge has ruled that Rudy Giuliani, the once-respected former mayor of New York City, can appeal the $146 million verdict after he was found liable of defaming two Georgia elections workers — if he uses pre-approved donors to pay the legal expenses, NBCNews.com reported. In December, an eight-person jury awarded Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea "Shaye" Moss, the multimillion-dollar judgment after Giuliani was found to have defamed them, which the mother-daughter duo said had changed their lives forever and caused them to be flooded with a torrent of racist and violent threats. Giuliani baselessly accused them of trying to commit fraud in Georgia as part of a multifaceted effort to overturn Donald Trump's 2020 election defeat. Giuliani filed for bankruptcy in New York in December after the federal judge in his Washington case ordered him to start paying the Georgia election workers. On Tuesday, the bankruptcy judge assigned to Giuliani's case in New York said the former mayor must seek the judge's approval before any third-party payment of fees and expenses. Those fees cannot come from Giuliani's existing assets, the judge said. "Any fees and expenses incurred by the Debtor and his advisors in the Freeman Litigation in connection with any Post-Trial Filings and the Notice of Appeal shall not be paid by, and shall not result in a claim against, the Debtor or his estate," U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane wrote. In a court filing last week, Freeman and Moss noted that Giuliani's son was president of Giuliani Defense, a legal defense fund, and said it was "essential to obtain clarity on how the Legal Defense Funds were themselves funded." On Monday, Giuliani declared that he had not directly or indirectly donated any money to either of his legal defense funds.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday grappled with a North Dakota convenience store's challenge to a contentious debit card "swipe fee" rule set by the U.S. Federal Reserve, with some of the justices appearing split over the case's possible implications, Reuters reported. Arguments in the case focused on whether the store was too late in bringing its 2021 lawsuit challenging a 2011 Federal Reserve regulation governing how much businesses pay to banks when customers use debit cards to make purchases. The store, called Corner Post and located in Watford City, appealed after lower courts threw out the lawsuit on the basis of missing the six-year statute of limitations that generally applies to such litigation. The Supreme Court has a 6-3 conservative majority. Its three liberal justices and some of its conservatives seemed to differ on the implications of allowing such lawsuits after the six-year deadline. The store argued that it should not be bound by that statute of limitations because it opened for business in 2018, meaning its legal injury arose only after the deadline passed. Swipe fees are determined by Visa, MasterCard and other card networks, with a cap of 21 cents per transaction set under the Fed's 2011 rule.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday turned away a bid by landlords to challenge rent stabilization laws in New York City that cap rent hikes and make it harder to evict tenants, Reuters reported. The justices declined to hear appeals by property owners and industry groups of lower court rulings that found the price and eviction controls did not violate what is known as the "takings clause" of the U.S. Constitution's Fifth Amendment, which bars the government from taking property without compensating owners. New York City's modern rent stabilization system, enacted in 1969, was designed to address a shortage of affordable housing by capping rent increases and curbing the authority of property owners to evict tenants. The law, which was passed by New York state legislature and is implemented by the city, generally applies to buildings constructed before 1974 with at least six units, covering nearly one million apartments — around half of all apartment rentals in New York City. A city government panel each year decides the percentage increase landlords can charge for rent-stabilized units. According to proponents, rent stabilization measures protect communities by reducing tenant dislocation and homelessness, and by allowing residents to have long-term homes in a neighborhood. The New York law was amended in 2019 to expand tenant protections, drawing legal challenges from landlords and trade associations seeking higher investment returns and more control over their property.

The Archdiocese of Santa Fe is being accused of reneging on a promise to publicly post the names of clergy who were accused of child sexual abuse in claims submitted during its long-running chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, the Albuquerque Journal reported. Lawyers for a woman who contends she was first abused as a child in 1957 by the Rev. Richard Spellman say church officials are violating the terms of the bankruptcy settlement agreement that ended the case in December 2022. The archdiocese agreed to pay $121 million to 400 or so sex abuse survivors who submitted claims in the case. But archdiocese attorneys have disputed the notion that the settlement also requires disclosure of alleged perpetrators whose names surfaced during the confidential claims process. They contend that the archdiocese is required by the agreement to list on its website the names of "all known past and present clergy perpetrators of ASF who have been determined by the Archbishop in consultation" with an independent review board to be credibly accused of sexual abuse. Levi Monagle, one of the attorneys representing Mela LaJeunesse, filed a motion Tuesday disputing that interpretation and asked the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New Mexico to intervene.

The Reno City Center project, located at the old Harrah's building, has filed for chapter 11 protection, 2News.com reported. The filing, dated February 16th, was made through the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the District of Nevada and lists Reno City Center LLC as a Delaware limited liability company. Last September it was reported that the project was approved for a non-restrictive gaming license and an on-premises alcohol license for PKWAY Tavern. There's no mention within the bankruptcy filing whether the above licenses are affected, or whether the entire project will stop, or move forward. The voluntary petition mentions numerous creditors.