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Right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on Friday proposed a bankruptcy exit plan that offers to settle with Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims’ families by paying them at least $55 million over 10 years, Bloomberg News reported. The amount represents at least $30 million less than what the families had proposed, and is a fraction of the roughly $1.4 billion judges ruled they’re owed in defamation judgments against Jones related to to his lies that the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax. Jones filed for bankruptcy protection a year ago, after the judgments. Those who choose to settle with Jones would share in a pot of at least $5.5 million annually over 10 years, according to a chapter 11 plan Jones filed with the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas on Friday. The plan requires court approval. Beyond that annual minimum, family members who settle could receive all the disposable income from Jones’ bankrupt Infowars parent company, Free Speech System LLC, plus half of his own income over five years, and then a quarter of his income for the next five years, according to his plan. In exchange for settling with Jones, Sandy Hook victim families would receive faster payments but wouldn’t be able to continue to chase him down after his plan for the full worth of their litigation claims, according to the proposal.

A process to sell the venture-capital arm of bankrupt SVB Financial, the former parent of Silicon Valley Bank, has fallen flat and creditors are now gearing up for a potential takeover of the business, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Two front-runners had been vying for SVB Capital: a duo of Anthony Scaramucci’s SkyBridge Capital and Atlas Merchant Capital, and San Francisco private-equity firm Vector Capital, the Wall Street Journal reported in September. Those bidders aren’t moving forward in the process, after SVB considered the bids to be too low. Instead a group of SVB Financial’s creditors is planning to take over the venture capital business for themselves, the people said. SVB Capital has around $10 billion in assets under management, including investments in venture capital funds, direct investments in tech companies, and a book of private loans. It was expected to fetch anywhere between $250 million and $500 million. Bankers at Centerview Partners were advising the parent company on the process. If new bidders don’t show up to buy the business, it would stay in the reorganized SVB Financial which could be controlled by creditors including Pacific Investment Management Co. and Davidson Kempner Capital Management once the bankruptcy is done.

Ebix Inc. has filed for bankruptcy protection in a North Texas court after defaulting on a $617 million loan, Bloomberg News reported. Several subsidiaries of Ebix have also filed for bankruptcy, according to a Dec 17. court filing. The law firm Sidney Austin LLP has been assigned as bankruptcy counsel, while Jefferies LLC will act as the investment banker to the proceedings, according to the filing. The filing says that each subsidiary and advisors will “conduct a fulsome marketing and sale process” for the assets of the company. The Texas court will hear the case on Dec. 19.

Madera hospital’s creditors want to be repaid through the bankruptcy process — including the hospital’s chief executive, the Fresno (Calif.) Bee reported. Last month, the hospital’s creditors submitted to a federal bankruptcy court their plan to liquidate the hospital, which, if approved by the court, would start the process of selling off the hospital assets to pay back millions owed to the creditors. Among the dozens of businesses, doctors and individuals who filed claims is Karen Paolinelli, Madera Community Hospital’s chief executive. Earlier this year, she filed a claim requesting payment for $200,658 in unpaid vacation time and unpaid self-funded insurance benefits. Paolinelli, who earns an annual salary of $359,668, according to the hospital’s latest available tax records, is a key player along with the hospital board of trustees in trying to find a partner to reopen the hospital, which ceased operations and closed its doors nearly a year ago. The hospital has just months to secure a reopening partner before creditors plan to vote on the liquidation plan in February. The liquidation plan filed by creditors allows for the hospital to pursue an agreement with a partner to reopen the hospital, subject to creditor and court approval.

A bankrupt Arizona youth-sports complex was sold in a transaction that will virtually wipe out bondholders, capping a collapse that marks one of the biggest municipal-debt defaults since the pandemic, Bloomberg News reported. The project was financed with $280 million of bonds issued through the Arizona Industrial Development Authority in 2020 and 2021, when still rock-bottom interest rates were fueling demand for high-yield debt. But the sprawling sports-field venue outside of Phoenix, known as Legacy Park, faltered as the pandemic upended the sports industry and interest in the facility proved lackluster. It subsequently defaulted on the debt and filed for bankruptcy in May. The saga highlighted the risk carried by bonds that are issued by government agencies on behalf of speculative businesses. Because the agencies aren’t on the hook if the ventures fail, they’re far more default-prone than typical municipal bonds backed by state and local tax revenues. As part of the bankruptcy, an affiliate of Rocky Mountain Resources on Thursday closed on the approximately $26 million purchase of the facility, a set of fields and courts for soccer, football, baseball, basketball and other sports. Most of the proceeds are going to building contractors for unpaid work. Bondholders will get $2.4 million in cash and an 11% equity stake in the new ownership entity.

Crypto firm SafeMoon filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy with the United States Bankruptcy Court of Utah State yesterday, the Crypto Times reported. Safemoon’s chapter 7 bankruptcy filing represents the voluntary liquidation of the company, which has an estimated asset value of $10 million to $50 million. The bankruptcy filing comes nearly a month after the U.S. SEC accused Safemoon of fraud and security law violations. On November 2, the SEC charged Safemoon executives for $200 million of project development funds, which they allegedly used for personal expenses and investments. Following the bankruptcy filing, the project’s SFM token dropped over 50% in the past 24 hours, with its market cap dropping to merely $18 million, which once peaked at $1 billion in February 2022, according to market data from Coinmarketcap.

A Phoenix-based solar panel installation firm once hailed as one of the fastest-growing companies in the nation has ceased operations, laid off dozens of employees and filed for bankruptcy protection, the Phoenix Business Journal reported. Erus Energy submitted a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, or WARN filing, with the state of Arizona on Nov. 9 indicating plans to lay off 56 employees at 21402 N. 7th Ave. Founded in 2004, Erus had operations in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, serving more than 17,000 customers. Erus ranked No. 2,394 on the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing companies in the nation in 2020, the Business Journal previously reported. The Nov. 9 WARN filing contained a letter from Erus CEO Abraham Sabbagh to Erus Energy employees, which was obtained by Phoenix Business Journal on Dec. 8. The letter stated that the company was ceasing operations and laying off workers on Nov. 3, citing challenging conditions in the residential solar industry including elevated interest rates, utility permitting delays and lower installation rates.

Drugmakers and distributors pledged tens of billions of dollars to settle lawsuits accusing them of helping fuel the country’s opioid crisis. But much of the money may never be paid, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Opioid victims are finding that billions of settlement dollars have been snared in the nation’s bankruptcy system, where they face financial engineering by sophisticated investors and management teams, roadblocks from the federal government, and extensive legal wrangling and costs. The Supreme Court last week heard the Justice Department’s argument for why OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma’s roughly $8 billion settlement should be scrapped even though it has the support of nearly all opioid victims who voted on the matter. Pharmaceutical manufacturers Mallinckrodt and Endo International both completed transactions that gave priority to the interests of their financial creditors over those of opioid victims, and rewarded the companies’ top executives with bonuses or accelerated compensation before filing for chapter 11. The drug industry has committed to provide more than $50 billion to address the opioid crisis, with most of the funds coming from major pharmaceutical manufacturers like Johnson & Johnson and retailers such as CVS and Walgreens. About $10 billion would have come from Purdue Pharma, Mallinckrodt and Endo, which all filed for bankruptcy to pause mass lawsuits as they negotiated settlement agreements with state and local governments, individual victims and their family members. Those companies said chapter 11 would be the best forum to equitably distribute funds to the opioid claimants and government bodies. But the settlement deals they agreed to have been either delayed or eliminated in long and expensive court proceedings. Victims are left wondering whether payments will ever arrive, while people continue to die of overdoses and governments struggle to address the continuing epidemic.

Bankruptcy Judge Paul Warren has declined to kill a $63.5 million deal between Continental Insurance Co. and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester in the diocese’s bankruptcy. Warren’s decision came after he called off a Dec. 8 hearing in which the insurer and the official committee of unsecured creditors were expected to present oral arguments, the Rochester Diocese reported. Judge Warren’s decision, handed down later the same day, leaves questions to be settled: whether either or both rival plans of reorganization presented by Continental and the diocese can be put up to a vote by creditors, and whether Continental can collect damages from the diocese for expenses the insurer says it bore after the diocese pulled out of the 2022 settlement agreement. Approval of the reorganization plan by creditors and the court is needed before payments can be made to the 485 survivors of sexual abuse at the hands of priests and other church functionaries seeking compensation from the diocese. Before calling off the Dec. 8 hearing, Judge Warren, hoping to avoid protracted litigation in the already drawn-out bankruptcy, had invited the parties to work out a global settlement. In his decision, the judge called his failed attempt to cut short the contentious proceedings “a perhaps naïve but well-intended effort.”

A federal judge took steps to end a protracted dispute between FTX and its largest creditor at a bankruptcy hearing, signaling the court could try to speed up efforts to recover FTX customer's funds from the failed crypto firm's estate. Bankruptcy Judge John Dorsey scheduled a hearing for early next year to calculate the crypto exchange's debt to the IRS, a sticking point that has stagnated efforts to remunerate the exchange's many victims. As FTX's largest creditor, the IRS' claim must be resolved before FTX victim's can recover their losses. During the bankruptcy hearing, the judge said that while FTX's bankruptcy was "a complicated case," it still needs to be resolved more quickly. "The idea here in bankruptcy, tax court bankruptcy, is we're trying to get to conclusions occlusions quickly and be as accurate as possible without wasting a lot of time and resources of the state or the other creditors," he said near the end of the hearing.