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A bankruptcy judge approved a chapter 11 exit plan for Latam Airlines Group SA that puts $5.44 billion of fresh capital into the Chilean business, moving it closer to ending its pandemic-driven restructuring after two years, the Wall Street Journal reported. Judge James Garrity of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York said the chapter 11 plan resulted from “good faith, arm’s-length negotiations” among Latam and its stakeholders and provides the best available path to resolve its bankruptcy case. He also said the financial restructuring aims to maximize the value of Latam, the largest airline in Latin America, which filed for chapter 11 in New York in 2020 as pandemic restrictions shut down air travel in the region. Latam is handing control to major unsecured creditors including Sixth Street Partners, Strategic Value Partners LLC and Sculptor Capital Management, which agreed to backstop $3.67 billion of a planned capital raise. Current shareholders of Latam, including Delta Air Lines Inc. and Qatar Airways, will guarantee another $1.77 billion in common stock and convertible notes, while retaining minority stakes in the business. Latam said it expects to complete the chapter 11 process by the end of this year and will focus in coming months on the remaining steps to emergence, which include obtaining the necessary legal and regulatory approvals in Chile.

For almost nine months, the musicians of the San Antonio Symphony were on strike, resisting steep cuts proposed by management that they said would destroy the ensemble. As the dispute dragged on, much of the 2021-22 season was canceled, the players found part-time jobs and mediators tried to negotiate a compromise to save the 83-year-old orchestra. The impasse came to an end on Thursday with the announcement that the symphony had decided to file for bankruptcy and dissolve, the New York Times reported. The symphony’s board, which had argued that maintaining a large orchestra had grown too costly, especially during the coronavirus pandemic, said that it did not see a path forward. “With deep regret,” the board said in a statement, “the board of directors of the Symphony Society of San Antonio announces the dissolution of the San Antonio Symphony.” The board said the musicians’ demands to preserve jobs and pay would require “agreeing to a budget that is millions of dollars in excess of what the symphony can afford.” The decision will make San Antonio, with a population of 1.5 million, the largest American city without a major orchestra. Many of the orchestra’s players were caught off guard by the announcement and said they were disheartened that a compromise could not be reached. Since the strike began in late September, some have been working as substitutes in other orchestras, including in Boston, New York, Dallas and Nashville.

New York Attorney General Letitia James on Friday announced that her office secured up to $58.5 million from one of the largest drug manufacturers of opioids in the country, Mallinckrodt plc (Mallinckrodt), for its role in fueling the opioid crisis, according to a press release. Mallinckrodt used deceptive and misleading marketing tactics to encourage use of its highly addictive opioids that harmed communities across the country. Mallinckrodt entered into bankruptcy proceedings shortly after Attorney General James filed a lawsuit against the company in March 2019. Today’s agreement resolves those claims and raises the total amount secured by Attorney General James from opioid manufacturers and distributors to more than $1.5 billion to combat the opioid crisis. This is the second agreement that Attorney General James has reached with Mallinckrodt related to harm it caused New Yorkers. Earlier, Attorney General James announced that Mallinckrodt would pay $26.8 million for Medicaid fraud.

Pompano Beach, Fla.-based Stimwave Technologies and its affiliate, Stimwave LLC, filed chapter 11 reorganization to sell their assets, the South Florida Business Journal reported. The companies announced New York-based Kennedy Lewis Management agreed to buy their assets and would also provide up to $40 million in debtor-in-possession financing to support Stimwave during bankruptcy. The companies produce neurostimulation devices that aim to relieve chronic pain. In 2018, Stimwave received a $60 million venture capital investment, the largest in South Florida that year. Both companies filed for chapter 11 in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware on June 15. Stimwave Technologies listed assets between $50 million and $100 million, with liabilities from $10 million to $50 million. The largest unsecured creditor was Palm Harbor-based Oscor Inc., with $616,690 owed over inventory payments.

A judge in Texas overseeing Brazos Electric Power Cooperative Inc.'s bankruptcy rejected a request by one of its creditors to arbitrate a contract dispute worth up to $770 million, saying that the proposed arbitration could derail the power cooperative's restructuring and harm consumers in rural Texas at a time when energy prices are already high, Reuters reported. At a Wednesday court hearing in Houston, attorneys for creditor Sandy Creek Energy Associates LP pushed for Brazos, the largest power cooperative in Texas, to arbitrate a contract dispute outside of bankruptcy court. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David Jones sided with Brazos, saying that Sandy Creek's proposal could "drastically change the landscape" of the bankruptcy and ultimately harm other creditors, including rural power customers. "I do not buy the explanation at all that it's going to be quicker," Jones said. Brazos filed for bankruptcy after a historic winter storm in 2021 left millions of Texans without power and triggered a $2 billion fight between Brazos and the state’s electric grid operator. The deadly storm caused energy prices to spike several thousand percent and has caused several other energy companies to file for bankruptcy. Brazos is attempting to mediate its dispute with the Texas power grid operator before proposing a restructuring plan in court.

Revlon Inc. filed for bankruptcy, potentially ending a decades-long bet on the beauty products company by Ronald Perelman, its billionaire controlling shareholder, the Wall Street Journal reported. Mr. Perelman bought Revlon in 1985 and built a reputation for always riding to its rescue when its future looked bleak, often through rescue loans or cash infusions. Now he faces losing control of the cosmetics business as it confronts a heavy debt load, inflation and supply-chain pressures and competitive threats. Revlon filed for bankruptcy in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York on Wednesday. The move to reorganize gives Revlon a chance to shed debt and chart a path forward for the business, which was in talks with certain lenders ahead of the chapter 11 filing. The New York-based company is among the last remaining holdings of Mr. Perelman, a private-equity financier whose deal for Revlon was one of the original high-profile leveraged buyouts. His investment firm, MacAndrews & Forbes Inc., owns roughly 85% of the business, which his daughter Debra Perelman runs as chief executive. Revlon narrowly avoided bankruptcy in 2020 after lockdowns emptied malls, salons and spas nationwide. Sales are now rebounding, but the company also is contending with a debt load of roughly $3.3 billion as of March, according to securities filings. Revlon found itself in a bind for years with too much debt, according to analysts, and lost some of its gloss as consumer habits changed and new competition emerged. The COVID-19 pandemic worsened matters by sapping consumer traffic in key shopping areas.

A U.S. bankruptcy judge said yesterday that he may allow some lawsuits that accuse Johnson & Johnson talc products of causing cancer to proceed while the company's subsidiary seeks a national settlement of the claims in bankruptcy, Reuters reported. Bankruptcy Judge Michael Kaplan in Trenton, N.J., said that he would consider "two very different paths forward" for the bankruptcy at a July 6 hearing. The company wants the bankruptcy court to estimate the number and value of talc claims, while plaintiffs in the talc lawsuits have asked the court to allow some cases to resume outside of the bankruptcy court. J&J, which maintains that its Baby Powder and other talc products are safe, assigned its talc liabilities to a new subsidiary, LTL Management LLC, and placed it in bankruptcy in October, pausing 38,000 lawsuits that had been filed against J&J. The talc claimants have appealed Kaplan's decision to allow the bankruptcy case to block their lawsuits, and the two sides remain far apart in recent mediation. LTL attorney Greg Gordon of Jones Day said the bankruptcy court should estimate the overall value of talc claims to impose "discipline" on settlement talks. David Molton of Brown Rudnick, an attorney for the talc claimants , said that LTL's approach would cause the case to "malinger" and "fester," just like other bankruptcies involving asbestos claims. At least 300 cancer victims with claims against J&J have died since the LTL case was filed, Molton said.

Electric Last Mile Solutions said in a filing yesterday that the U.S. commercial electric vehicle startup had commenced bankruptcy proceedings and blamed a lack of funding for the decision, Reuters reported. The company said on Sunday investigations by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and an internal committee into the share purchases of former CEO Jim Taylor and Chairman Jason Luo leading to their resignation made it "extremely challenging" to secure funding. The Troy, Mich.-based company, which ceased all operations yesterday, said that it received a notice from Nasdaq on Monday regarding the delisting of its shares and expects trading of its stock to be suspended on June 23. The company went public last year June through a merger with blank-check firm Forum Merger III Corp. Electric Last Mile said earlier this week it was planning to file for chapter 7 bankruptcy after a review of its products and commercialization plants.

Mallinckrodt plc on Monday announced that it expects to complete its reorganization process, emerge from chapter 11 and complete the Irish Examinership proceedings in the coming days, according to a press release. On the effective date of emergence, all of Mallinckrodt's existing ordinary shares will be canceled pursuant to the company's reorganization plan and the Irish scheme of arrangement. Mallinckrodt expects to issue at emergence 13,170,932 new ordinary shares to its guaranteed unsecured noteholders in accordance with the provisions of the plan and the scheme. In accordance with the plan, Mallinckrodt also expects to issue at emergence to the opioid claimants 3,290,675 warrants, with a strike price of $103.40, and to adopt at emergence a management incentive plan providing for the issuance to management, key employees and directors of the company of equity awards with respect to up to an aggregate of 1,829,068 shares. Mallinckrodt's new shares are anticipated to trade over-the-counter until such time as the Company relists on a national securities exchange.

A federal bankruptcy court judge again has extended the deadline for the Diocese of Norwich to submit a bankruptcy plan, so creditors, including 140 people who say they were sexually assaulted by priests, can meet with a mediator and resolve a number of contentious issues, The Day reported. Judge James Tancredi on Monday ordered that the Roman Catholic diocese's exclusive filing period for the plan be extended until Sept. 30. It was the fourth extension for the diocese. In April, Tancredi had extended the deadline to June 15, again to give the parties more time to negotiate an agreement. The diocese filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy 11 months ago as it faced more than 60 lawsuits filed by men who say they were sexually assaulted as boys by Christian Brothers and other staff at the diocese-run Mount Saint John Academy, a school for troubled boys in Deep River, from 1990 to 2002. Since then 80 additional people, whose sexual assault allegations involved not only the school but diocesan churches, have filed claims in the bankruptcy case. In addition, various other creditors are seeking a portion of the diocese's assets.