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Satellite operator Intelsat SA said yesterday that it filed for chapter 11 protection, Reuters reported. The company listed assets and liabilities in the range of $10 billion to $50 billion, according to a filing in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Intelsat also said that it had received $1 billion in debtor-in-possession financing. The company’s chapter 11 filing comes more than a month after it suspended its 2020 outlook and said it would delay filing its first-quarter results. Intelsat is among a number of companies that will participate in the accelerated clearing of C-band spectrum under the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) order to support a build-out of 5G wireless infrastructure in the U.S. “To meet the FCC’s accelerated clearing deadlines and ultimately be eligible to receive $4.87 billion of accelerated relocation payments, Intelsat needs to spend more than $1 billion on clearing activities,” the Luxembourg-based company said in a statement. Intelsat General, which serves the company’s U.S. commercial, government and allied military customers, is not part of the chapter 11 proceedings, the company said.

The auto industry was bracing for a brutal year even before the coronavirus idled factories, closed dealerships and sent sales into a free fall. Now, the industry is expected to realign in ways that could have a profound effect on the eight million people worldwide who work for vehicle manufacturers, the New York Times reported. It took almost a decade for car sales in the European Union to recover from the recession that began in 2008. The U.S. market took about five years to bounce back, but sales have been flat since 2015. Explosive growth in China initially helped compensate, but the market has been in decline since 2018. As Volkswagen, Daimler, Fiat Chrysler and other companies slowly restart their assembly lines, people who work in the car business are beginning to ponder what the repercussions of this crisis will be. Automakers worldwide had at least 20 percent more factory capacity than they needed before the coronavirus hit, analysts say. That idle manufacturing space cost them money without producing any profit. As sales plummet further, shutting down underused plants may be a matter of survival.

Freedom Oil and Gas became the latest victim of the oil crash as it filed for bankruptcy protection, the Houston Chronicle reported. The Houston oil exploration and production company, formerly known as Maverick Drilling Services, filed for chapter 11 protection on Monday in federal court in Houston. The company said that it was unable to pay its more than $10 million of debt as revenues have plunged during the global coronavirus pandemic. It plans to sell all of its assets to Australian environmental services company Sendero Resources, pending approval from the bankruptcy court.