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Bertucci’s Restaurants filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Monday, according to court documents viewed by Restaurant Dive. The company formed in April 2018 after Bertucci’s Brick Oven Pizza & Pasta went bankrupt and Earl Enterprises bought it for $20 million. The 47-unit, Italian-themed restaurant said the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation, sales declines and increased expenses led it to declare bankruptcy for the second time in four years. Bertucci’s has been offering promotions this year to try and get more guests in the door. In July, it temporarily lowered menu prices to 1980s levels for 14 items. In August, it launched Happy Hour and brought back its Throwback Thursdays promotion, which also priced menu items as they were in the 1980s. But these efforts don’t seem to have helped regain sales momentum lost during the pandemic. While the casual pizza chain reported over $120 million in annual sales for 2019, sales fell to $97.9 million in 2021 and operating losses were $14 million with a net loss of $7.2 million, according to the filing. In 2018, the company had 56 locations, but its footprint shrank 16% as of 2022. Bertucci’s employee count also fell from roughly 2,000 in 2019 to 1,436 in 2022. Bertucci’s has over $20 million in secured debt, a tax obligation of $1.5 million and unsecured debt of about $26.5 million, according to the filing.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch on Monday signaled a desire for clearer rules on when appeals courts can hear disputes stemming from bankruptcy sales, in a case involving a cheap lease Sears had at the Mall of America that was transferred following its bankruptcy, Reuters reported. Douglas Hallward-Driemeier, a lawyer for the Minneapolis-based mall's parent company, MOAC Mall Holdings LLC, sought to convince the justices to reverse a lower court ruling finding it had to honor an extremely tenant-friendly lease it made with Sears Holdings Corp in 1991 that offered Sears rent of just $10 a year for 100 years. After Sears went bankrupt in 2018, it sold its assets for $5.2 billion to former chairman Eddie Lampert and his hedge fund ESL Investments Inc., and the lease was transferred months later to Transform Holdco LLC, a company formed by Sears' new owners. Transform's lawyer Eric Brunstad argued that under bankruptcy law no court has the jurisdiction to hear Mall of America's appeal and that finality in bankruptcy sales protects both debtors and buyers.

When crypto exchange FTX was struggling to raise cash early last month, it seized billions of dollars worth of collateral from its trading arm, Alameda Research, and used it to try to convince investors of its financial health, former FTX Chief Executive Sam Bankman-Fried said, the Wall Street Journal reported. But much of it didn’t add up. A big chunk of the assets consisted of four thinly traded crypto tokens closely connected to Mr. Bankman-Fried and FTX employees and mostly held by Alameda. The tokens were likely worth far less than the $6.4 billion marked on the balance sheet FTX was shopping to investors in the hope of a bailout, according to market data and crypto researchers. “It wasn’t meant to be casting a judgment or making a decision for people on what they thought was their worth from a liquidity perspective,” Mr. Bankman-Fried said. The four tokens taken from Alameda were listed as assets in documents dated Nov. 10, Mr. Bankman-Fried said in an interview Friday and according to documents reviewed by the Wall Street Journal. By then, the value of the tokens had roughly halved in less than a week, market data and FTX’s balance sheet show. Some investors had already been skeptical of the value of these tokens. At its peak price, one had a market value of $127 billion—though only a tiny fraction of that was available for purchase. The value FTX placed on the tokens held on its balance sheet vastly exceeded the total amount in circulation. No investor stepped forward to save FTX, which filed for bankruptcy the next day.

The chair of the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee demanded on Monday that Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and former CEO of the now-bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, testify before Congress on Dec. 13, Reuters reported. "It is imperative that you attend our hearing on the 13th, and we are willing to schedule continued hearings if there is more information to be shared later," Representative Maxine Waters, the committee chair, wrote on Twitter. On Sunday, Bankman-Fried tweeted that he would testify before the committee after he finished "learning and reviewing" the events that led to the spectacular collapse of his cryptocurrency exchange. In the tweet Bankman-Fried said he was unsure if that would happen before Dec. 13. But in her reply on Monday, Waters wrote on Twitter: "Based on your role as CEO and your media interviews over the past few weeks, it's clear to us that the information you have thus far is sufficient for testimony."

The judge overseeing Celsius Network LLC’s bankruptcy case is expected to decide if the crypto firm has full ownership rights over customer deposits, a key legal issue that may resonate for millions of other users of failed crypto platforms, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Judge Martin Glenn of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York is set to consider this week whether Celsius has the right to lend, sell and reinvest billions of dollars of crypto deposited in its high-interest accounts. Customers have clamored for a return of their coins as quickly as possible, and have argued that Celsius and its founder, Alex Mashinsky, touted that customers would retain control over their deposits. The immediate impact of a ruling in favor of Celsius would be to allow the company to sell $18 million in stablecoins to fund the expenses for a longer stay in chapter 11. But the firm’s request to sell those stablecoins turns on a more fundamental legal question: What rights do crypto banks, brokerages or exchanges have over their customers’ coins? Ownership rights are spelled out in each firm’s terms of use that customers signed on to, often on their mobile devices with just a few clicks. Bankruptcy courts have only begun to unravel what those terms of use mean for the billions of dollars in cryptocurrencies trapped on insolvent platforms like Celsius, Voyager Digital Holdings Inc. and, more recently, FTX.

The collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX has opened a hornet’s nest of squabbles between foreign governments and its new U.S. chief executive, John J. Ray III, the Wall Street Journal reported. In Cyprus, the country’s securities regulator is complaining that Mr. Ray’s decision to place FTX in bankruptcy has stymied investigations and is preventing European customers from getting their money back. Officials in the Bahamas, where FTX moved its headquarters last year, are accusing Mr. Ray of making false statements and suggesting that his team is motivated by the prospects of earning hefty legal fees. In Turkey, authorities have seized the assets of FTX’s local subsidiary, an affront to Mr. Ray’s efforts to sweep FTX’s assets into the chapter 11 process in Delaware. Such disputes reflect a disconnect between the global aspirations of cryptocurrencies and the hard facts of the law, whose powers often don’t extend beyond a nation’s borders. Proponents say the cross-border nature of crypto makes sending money to someone on the other side of the world as easy as sending an email, and many crypto firms have offered their services to customers all over the world and have established headquarters in offshore jurisdictions. But laws meant to protect customers when things go wrong — and the bankruptcy regime in particular — are deeply tied up with national boundaries, and cross-border cooperation is never a guarantee.

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried tweeted on Sunday that he would testify before the House Financial Services Committee after he finished "learning and reviewing" the events that led to the spectacular collapse of his cryptocurrency exchange, Reuters reported. The U.S. House Financial Services Committee plans to hold a hearing in December to investigate the collapse of FTX and expects to hear from the companies and individuals involved, including founder and CEO Bankman-Fried. Committee Chair Maxine Waters last week invited Bankman-Fried to participate in the panel's hearing on Dec. 13. "Once I have finished learning and reviewing what happened, I would feel like it was my duty to appear before the committee and explain," the founder and former FTX CEO wrote in a reply to Waters. Bankman-Fried added that he was unsure if that would happen before Dec. 13. He rejected suggestions of fraud in a range of interviews last week after his company's collapse stunned investors and left creditors facing losses totaling billions of dollars.

LedgerX, one of the few solvent pieces of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crumbled FTX empire, is for sale and attracting interest from would-be buyers including crypto giants Blockchain.com and Gemini, Bloomberg News reported. The unit, which is registered with the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission as a derivatives exchange, was a cornerstone of Bankman-Fried’s efforts in Washington. It’s also considered one of the most valuable assets associated with FTX after more than 100 other entities filed for bankruptcy. New FTX Chief Executive Officer John J. Ray III and restructuring advisers have been poring over the company’s books in search of cash, cryptocurrency and assets that could be sold to help repay creditors. It’s unclear how much LedgerX, which had about $303 million in cash as of a Nov. 17 filing, may fetch in a sale. In addition to Blockchain.com and Gemini, crypto exchange Bitpanda and event contracts trading platform Kalshi, which is also registered with the CFTC and uses LedgerX to clear trades, have expressed interest. There are about half a dozen other potential buyers and more could be added.

Crypto broker Genesis and its parent company Digital Currency Group (DCG) owe customers of the Winklevoss twins' crypto exchange Gemini $900 million, the Financial Times reported on Saturday. Crypto exchange Gemini is trying to recover the funds after Genesis was wrongfooted by last month’s failure of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX crypto group. Venture capital company Digital Currency Group, which owns Genesis Trading and cryptocurrency asset manager Grayscale, owes $575 million to Genesis' crypto lending arm, Digital Currency Chief Executive Barry Silbert told shareholders last month.

A U.S. bankruptcy judge ordered the founders of Singapore-based Three Arrows Capital Ltd. to turn over records related to the failed cryptocurrency hedge fund’s assets to its liquidators, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Judge Martin Glenn of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York granted the liquidators’ request to subpoena Three Arrows founders Su Zhu and Kyle Davies as part of an effort to recover the hedge fund’s assets. Messrs. Zhu and Davies have offered only limited cooperation so far and have failed to provide a complete set of books and records, according to the liquidators’ court filings. The subpoenas authorized Friday seek documents related to Three Arrows’ cryptocurrency wallets, accounts and other assets, as well as records of the founders’ communications on email, Twitter, Discord, WhatsApp and Telegram. The liquidators also want to question Messrs. Zhu and Davies under oath, according to court documents. Although Judge Glenn authorized the subpoenas, he said he needed more evidence before deciding whether to grant the liquidators’ request to serve legal notice to Messrs. Zhu and Davies through their Twitter accounts. The liquidators have said they aren’t sure where the founders are currently residing after spending months trying to determine their exact locations. Three Arrows collapsed this summer following a rout in cryptocurrency prices. Its founders applied to have it liquidated in the British Virgin Islands, where Three Arrows is incorporated, after which court-appointed liquidators filed for U.S. bankruptcy protection in New York.