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The oil and gas explorers they managed went under, but they walked out with a combined $199 million in cash, Bloomberg News reported. That’s how much 76 executives behind the 25 largest U.S. oil and gas bankruptcies between 2018 and 2020 received in cash bonuses, retention payments and severance, advocacy group Public Citizen said in a report Thursday. Meanwhile, more than 10,000 of their employees lost their jobs, the group said. The shale boom that made the U.S. the world’s largest oil producer was bankrolled by hundreds of billions of dollars in debt. Two market crashes since 2014 have led scores of producers to go under. To be sure, most shale producers have made spending discipline, debt reduction and investor returns their main focus since the pandemic-driven market collapse of last year. Producers’ earnings have rebounded this year, and their balance sheets were strengthened by a rally in oil and gas prices. Oil and gas executives got an average $2.6 million cash payout each following bankruptcy, according to the report. The study excluded other forms of compensation. The report also pointed out that the companies that were analyzed purchased only $281 million in bonds to cover environmental losses, less than 20% of their own estimated environmental liabilities.

Purdue Pharma LP and its owners, members of the Sackler family, are nearing the end of their decades-long association with opioids, seeking court approval to pay billions of dollars and walk away from the business that helped make their fortune, Bloomberg News reported. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain today will begin what’s expected to be an 11-day trial -- the longest in his career -- to review a proposal the company values at more than $10 billion to settle trillions of dollars in liabilities over its addictive painkiller OxyContin. If Purdue’s plan is approved, the family will pay $4.5 billion over nine or 10 years and essentially hand over the keys to the business, with almost all future proceeds benefiting states, counties and cities hit hard by the opioid epidemic. In exchange, the Sacklers get lifetime immunity from a broad array of opioid-related lawsuits. If the settlement is rejected, family members would likely find themselves ensnared in costly litigation that would drag on for years.

Limetree Bay, the Virgin Islands oil refinery that recently entered bankruptcy following an environmental breach, said in a court hearing Wednesday that it has resolved a disagreement regarding a $25 million financing package by investment firm Arena Investors LP. A lawyer for Arena said that after receiving additional information from Limetree, Arena has agreed to provide access to the credit facility, which will be used to provide for payroll and other costs of doing business.

Colombia’s flag carrier, Avianca, has submitted a reorganization plan to a U.S. bankruptcy court, Flight Global reported. The Bogota-based airline’s plan, submitted to the bankruptcy court for the Southern District of New York on Aug. 10, outlines its obligations to creditors and the settlement of claims. It says a new strategy will help it simplify operations and position Avianca to thrive in the Latin American market. Avianca and its Latin American peers Aeromexico and LATAM Airlines declared bankruptcy last year after the coronavirus decimated global air travel demand. Airlines shrunk networks, retired and stored aircraft, and laid off staff in an effort to preserve cash. In documents submitted to the court this week, Avianca outlines a new fleet plan and says it expects to emerge from the proceedings with 109 aircraft, down from the 158 it operated prior to 2020. It has also been working with airframers and lessors to restructure future aircraft deliveries. The airline has 66 aircraft in service and 29 in storage, according to Cirium fleets data.

Bankruptcy courts are facing a backlash among congressional Democrats over the growing practice of authorizing legal protection to accused wrongdoers who haven’t sought chapter 11 protection themselves, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. While filing for chapter 11 protects a corporation or nonprofit from its creditors, bankruptcy judges often extend those same legal protections to affiliates, owners and other parties with interests at stake. Shielding these third parties from liability, in exchange for settlement payments, has become an increasingly common feature of large chapter 11 cases, according to bankruptcy specialists. Some members of Congress now believe that the practice has gone too far and have proposed forbidding bankruptcy courts from signing away legal claims against third parties, unless every affected creditor agrees. The Democratic legislation on releases would outlaw a critical component of Purdue’s plan while also limiting bankruptcy courts’ power to pause litigation against third parties while a repayment plan is being formulated. The sponsoring lawmakers will face obstacles, including garnering support from Republicans and overcoming concerns that releases can facilitate fair settlements and avoid costly litigation.

A bankruptcy judge said building-products maker CertainTeed LLC appears to have disadvantaged asbestos-injury claimants by placing its asbestos liabilities in chapter 11, spotlighting a corporate maneuver that some congressional Democrats want to curb, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Bankruptcy Judge J. Craig Whitley said yesterday that the company may have defrauded injury claimants when it used a corporate affiliate with no employees or operations as a “vessel designed to ferry…asbestos liabilities into bankruptcy.” The judge’s ruling didn’t address whether CertainTeed’s move to silo its asbestos liabilities ahead of a bankruptcy filing did in fact defraud asbestos claimants. Other companies have used a similar strategy in an effort to drive settlements of asbestos-injury litigation, and Johnson & Johnson has told injury lawyers in settlement talks it is considering such a move for liabilities related to its talcum-based baby powder. The judge’s decision stopped short of allowing asbestos litigation to resume against CertainTeed, a U.S. unit of France-based Compagnie de Saint-Gobain SA that makes roofing, siding, insulation and drywall for homes. In 2019 CertainTeed, facing roughly 60,000 asbestos lawsuits, with others likely to be filed, divided itself into two entities. The first retained the brand name and business assets. The second, dubbed DBMP LLC, was a vehicle to carry asbestos-related liabilities into chapter 11, while the rest of the company stayed out of bankruptcy.

The Archdiocese of Santa Fe will be auctioning nearly 140 parcels of property next month as it seeks to settle a raft of sex abuse claims, the Associated Press reported. Church officials announced yesterday that an online auction will begin Sept. 21. Opening bids will start as low as $500 for vacant pieces of property that are spread throughout three counties in central New Mexico. Another auction is planned for November. The archdiocese filed for bankruptcy reorganization in 2018 to deal with a surge of claims. A U.S. bankruptcy judge ruled last October that lawyers for clergy sex abuse survivors can file lawsuits alleging the archdiocese fraudulently transferred millions of dollars in property and other assets to avoid bigger payouts to victims. That decision in the chapter 11 reorganization case opened the door to what could be a multimillion-dollar settlement to hundreds of victims who filed claims. It also could result in costly legal appeals that would tap funds that would otherwise be used to pay claims.

A year after PG&E Corp. funded a trust to compensate victims of California wildfires with company stock, most have yet to be paid, and the shares have fallen in value after the utility acknowledged it might have started this year’s worst fire, the Wall Street Journal reported. As part of its plan to exit bankruptcy last year, the San Francisco-based company agreed to use cash and stock to fund a $13.5 billion trust to compensate roughly 70,000 individuals who lost homes, businesses and family members in fires sparked by its equipment. Some victims expressed concern at the time that the deal carried steep risks for them, noting that the shares weren’t guaranteed to rebound and could fall if PG&E started more fires. Those concerns so far have proved prescient. PG&E shares are worth approximately the same as when the trust was funded, threatening victims’ ability to receive full compensation. Their value is down roughly 25% this year and fell steeply last month when the company disclosed that its equipment might have ignited this summer’s continuing Dixie Fire, which has consumed nearly 490,000 acres in the Sierra Nevada foothills and destroyed the town of Greenville.

Operational expenses continue to outstrip revenues for the Springfield (Vt.) Hospital, which exited chapter 11 bankruptcy in December, according to the hospital’s filings with the Green Mountain Care Board, the Valley News reported. Some of the ongoing revenue issues can be chalked up to the COVID-19 pandemic and a related reduction in visits, as well as recovery from the bankruptcy, but it’s not clear how much. “We’re hopeful that it … ends up being a sustainable venture obviously,” said Andrea DeLaBruere, the executive director of the Vermont Agency of Human Services. Springfield Hospital projects to finish the fiscal year on Sept. 30 with a negative operating margin of $3.35 million, more than 6% of its total budget of $52.6 million, according to filings with the GMCB. That loss is smaller than the $5.3 million negative operating margin the hospital booked last year and the $9 million negative margin it booked in 2019. As of July 15, when it filed its budget proposal with the GMCB, the hospital reported 18 days of cash on hand. This is in spite of being the only hospital in the state to receive financial assistance in the past six months for “necessary expenditures incurred due to the public health emergency with respect to COVID-19,” said DeLaBruere.

The trial over Purdue Pharma’s settlement of opioid-related litigation will last up to 11 days, a judge said yesterday, warning parties that he will "cut people off if they are wasting time." During a virtual status conference, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain in White Plains, New York set the stage for the trial that will determine whether the OxyContin maker can bring its nearly two-year-long chapter 11 case to a close, Reuters reported. Purdue’s bankruptcy reorganization plan rests on a settlement with the Sackler family members that own the company which protects them from future opioid-related claims in exchange for a $4.5 billion contribution to the deal. The settlement has support from U.S. states, municipalities, hospitals, and individuals, but faces opposition from a handful of states and the U.S. Department of Justice’s bankruptcy watchdog, the U.S. Trustee. Purdue says that the deal, which steers funds toward opioid abatement programs, is worth more than $10 billion. Critics of the settlement oppose the “third-party releases” that would provide legal protections to the Sacklers. The company has said that without the releases, the entire settlement, including billions of dollars for state and local opioid abatement programs, would collapse. The trial will begin on Aug. 12 and continue for two weeks.