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The U.S. Department of Justice’s bankruptcy watchdog has opposed a request from certain National Rifle Association members seeking the appointment of an official committee to represent their interests in the gun rights organization’s chapter 11 case, saying they do not have the same status as equity holders under bankruptcy law, Reuters reported. In court papers filed on Sunday, the U.S. Trustee’s office urged U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Harlin Hale in Dallas to reject a motion from four NRA members to create the committee. The judge will consider the matter during a hearing on Wednesday, in the midst of a trial over the legitimacy of the NRA’s bankruptcy.

A bankrupt unit of nursing-home operator Consulate Health Care won court approval to put itself up for sale, along with the rights to try to collect on a $258 million whistleblower judgment against its other nonbankrupt corporate affiliates, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. CMC II LLC, a back-office manager for Consulate-run nursing homes, filed for bankruptcy last month along with two affiliated nursing homes, saying they couldn’t pay a $258 million judgment they faced for overbilling government health programs. CMC is now seeking to sell itself out of bankruptcy, and has named a Consulate affiliate as the lead bidder after it offered $3 million. The assets up for sale include CMC’s legal rights to seek compensation from its solvent corporate affiliates over the judgment that bankrupted it. Litigation financiers have expressed interest in purchasing the legal claims, according to testimony by CMC’s top restructuring officer. Lawyers for unsecured creditors, including the whistleblower who won the judgment, Angela Ruckh, are wary of the legal claims ending up in the hands of the lead bidder. In court hearings on Thursday and Friday, they said that putting CMC in the hands of a Consulate affiliate that has not filed for bankruptcy would simply bury the judgment, which could otherwise be asserted against other Consulate units. By Friday, the only concession won by Ms. Ruckh and other unsecured creditors was a two-month delay in the sale deadline, from May to July.

Insurer Hartford Financial Services Group said on Friday that it had agreed to a settlement with the Boy Scouts of America and would pay $650 million for sexual abuse claims associated with policies issued mostly in the 1970s, Reuters reported. Under the agreement, the Boy Scouts and its local councils will release Hartford from any obligation under policies it issued, Hartford said. The Boy Scouts filed for chapter 11 protection last February, amid a flood of lawsuits over allegations of child sexual abuse stretching back decades. "Our agreement with Hartford is an encouraging step towards achieving a global resolution that will promote the Boy Scouts' efforts to equitably compensate survivors and continue the mission of scouting," the Boy Scouts said in an emailed statement. The payment will be in addition to contributions from national Boy Scouts local councils, participating chartered organizations and other participating insurers, it added. Apart from Hartford, insurer Chubb Ltd is also facing potentially massive liabilities stemming from the Boy Scouts of America bankruptcy.

A bidding war over Hertz Global Holdings Inc. intensified as previously outbid investors returned to the table with a counteroffer for the bankrupt car-rental company, backed by Apollo Global Management Inc. and existing Hertz shareholders, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Investment firms Knighthead Capital Management LLC and Certares Management LLC, which previously offered to buy Hertz out of chapter 11 only to be eclipsed by a competing investor group, returned with a sweetened bid late Thursday that values Hertz at $6.2 billion. Apollo has agreed to supply up to $2.5 billion in preferred equity financing for the proposed restructuring, which unlike the prior offers would pay off the rental-car company’s funded debt in full. The revised bid challenges a restructuring offer that Hertz accepted earlier this month, backed by Centerbridge Partners LP, Warburg Pincus LLC and Dundon Capital Partners LLC and valuing the company at about $5.5 billion. The competing proposal presents a choice for Hertz, which is racing to exit from bankruptcy by the end of June and has already put the restructuring terms it selected earlier this month up for approval from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del.

A former confidant of Wayne LaPierre said that the longtime NRA leader feared the prospect of criminal charges and once described the gun group’s attorney William Brewer as “the only one” who could keep him out of prison, Bloomberg News reported. LaPierre made the comment at a meeting in early 2019, Anthony Makris said Friday at the NRA’s bankruptcy trial. Makris, a senior executive at the ad agency Ackerman McQueen, said LaPierre made the comment amid a contentious breakup between the NRA and the firm. Makris testified that he asked LaPierre at the meeting why he was turning his back on everyone who’d helped him over the years in favor of Brewer and his Dallas law firm. LaPierre responded that “Bill Brewer is the only one who can keep me out of jail,” Makris said. Makris didn’t specify why LaPierre feared jail, but The Wall Street Journal reported in October that the Internal Revenue Service is investigating the former NRA leader for possible criminal tax fraud related to his personal expenses. “We are not aware of any criminal justice inquiry, period,” Kent Correll, counsel to Wayne LaPierre, said in a statement.

Federal regulators have imposed a $15 million fine against the former owner of a mid-Michigan dam that unleashed a 500-year flood last year, saying that the company failed to perform important safety work after the disaster, MLive.com reported. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) announced on April 15, that it would assess the penalty against Boyce Hydro, a bankrupt company co-owned by Lee Mueller of Nevada that formerly operated the Edenville Dam. The Gladwin County dam failed last May, causing a downstream failure of the Sanford Dam and subsequent flooding in the village of Sanford, city of Midland and beyond. The fine has been anticipated since FERC proposed it in December. It equals the largest civil penalty for a hydroelectric dam safety failure in the United States, assessed after the 2005 Taum Sauk reservoir collapse in Missouri, which also resulted in a $15 million fine. The fine is based largely on Boyce Hydro’s failure to act on federal orders after the May 19, 2020 dam collapse in Edenville, which caused more than $200 million in estimated damages and forced the temporary evacuation of about 10,000 people. However, attorneys say it’s unlikely the fine can be paid because Boyce Hydro is insolvent and bankruptcy claims by creditors such as Byline Bank and other flood victims are taking priority over payment to the federal government. Boyce Hydro no longer owns the dam, which was transferred to the Four Lakes Task Force (FLTF). The task force paid $1.5 million to acquire the Edenville, Sanford, Secord and Smallwood dams through eminent domain as a delegate of Midland and Gladwin counties.

The California Public Utilities Commission has unanimously voted to approve a MVPD engaged in a “good faith” complaint with Gray Television to emergence from chapter 11 bankruptcy, RBR.com reported. The decision comes three months after the FCC gave its blessings. In a brief statement, Frontier Communications confirmed that it secured the all-important CPUC approval. That’s the last of the necessary approvals needed for Frontier to successfully emerge from debtor-in-possession status. The long-awaited approval follows the mid-January OK from the Commission of its chapter 11 reorganization plan. Frontier also successfully received regulatory approval or favorable determinations in 13 states. Upon emergence, Frontier will have reduced its total outstanding indebtedness by more than $10 billion.

Bankruptcies by North American oil producers rose to the highest first-quarter level since 2016, according to a report released on Thursday by law firm Haynes and Boone, as some energy firms struggled to recover from the 2020 crash in oil prices, Reuters reported. There were eight bankruptcies by North American oil and gas producers in the first quarter of 2021, versus 17 in the first quarter of 2016 — the last time U.S. crude futures dipped under $30 a barrel. Prices have bounced back from year-ago lows, trading around $63 a barrel on Thursday. The first quarter was marked by filings from relatively smaller firms, with just $1.8 billion in aggregate debt for the quarter. Last year, companies that filed for bankruptcy held $53 billion in aggregate debt, the highest total since 2016, when debt among filers totaled $56.8 billion, according to the report. HighPoint Resources Corp was the largest debt-holder to file for the quarter, with $905 million in secured and unsecured debt.