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With mediation efforts ongoing, China Fishery Group (CFG) trustee William Brandt believes that the Peruvian fishmeal and fish oil maker will be able to achieve a "value-maximizing exit" from bankruptcy by the end of 2021, Undercurrent News reported. Brandt, who was appointed in 2016 by a New York judge to oversee CFG amid the $1.5 billion bankruptcy filing of its Hong Kong-based parent company Pacific Andes International Holdings (PAIH), said earlier this month that talks to resolve thorny issue holding up a sale of CFG are showing promise but will require more time to conclude. In the meantime, CFG has used up all but $5.5 million of a $45m loan it took from the company's own resources to pay the administrative costs of the bankruptcy proceeding. Brandt has asked Bankruptcy Judge James Garrity to approve increasing CFG's potential borrowing ceiling to $60 million.

More than 2,000 victims of the Watson Grinding & Manufacturing explosion in northwest Houston are one step closer to getting their day in court, after a federal judge yesterday sent more than 126 cases filed against that company and others back to state court to move forward, the Houston Chronicle reported. The Jan. 24 explosion killed three men, two workers and a nearby resident, and rocked the working class neighborhood of Westbranch, damaging hundreds of homes. Affected residents have embarked on a gradual and often grueling recovery process, wrangling with insurers and rebuilding their homes when possible. Many filed lawsuits against Watson Grinding & Manufacturing and Watson Valve Services, Inc., the two companies located at the site of the explosion. The companies declared bankruptcy two weeks after the blast, effectively freezing the cases. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Marvin Isgur’s ruling Wednesday essentially unfreezes them, attorneys said. The claims against those two companies, and other companies added to the lawsuits afterward, now will proceed in Harris County District Court. The parties plan to ask the state Supreme Court to appoint a judge to handle all of the cases together.

The Department of Justice yesterday filed a Statement of Interest in In re Bestwall LLC in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of North Carolina, according to a DOJ press release. In this bankruptcy case, the debtor Bestwall LLC seeks to establish a trust to resolve its asbestos liabilities pursuant to 11 U.S.C. § 524(g), a provision in the Bankruptcy Code that provides the framework for responding to the unique issues associated with asbestos liability. As part of the bankruptcy, the court will evaluate the submitted asbestos claims and estimate the amount of the debtor’s asbestos liabilities. In order to ensure the accuracy of the estimation, the debtor has asked the court to require asbestos claimants to fill out a questionnaire providing basic information about their claims and to authorize discovery from other asbestos trusts to which claimants have submitted claims. The department’s Statement of Interest supports these proposed procedures on the ground that they will further transparency in the evaluation of the submitted asbestos claims and ensure the reliability of the estimation of the debtor’s asbestos liabilities. “It has become increasingly common for claimants’ counsel to seek duplicative recoveries from multiple sources by misrepresenting the asbestos products to which claimants were exposed,” said Deputy Assistant Attorney General Douglas Smith of the Justice Department's Civil Division. “Such duplicative claiming depletes resources that would otherwise be available to compensate deserving claimants filing claims in the future. Today’s Statement of Interest is one of many actions the department has taken over the last several years to encourage greater transparency in asbestos bankruptcy proceedings and prevent fraud.”

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was hit with several lawsuits yesterday for allegedly covering up decades of sexual abuse among Boy Scout troops in Arizona, marking the latest litigation before the state's end-of-year deadline for adult victims to sue, the Associated Press reported. The church "must be held accountable in order to bring healing and closure to Mormon victims of childhood sexual abuse," Hurley McKenna & Mertz, a law firm that focuses on church sex abuse, said in a statement. In the seven lawsuits each representing seven different male victims, attorneys say church officials never notified authorities about abuse allegations. Public records show members of church-sponsored Boy Scout troops who were abused would tell church bishops about what they had experienced. The lawsuits allege bishops would then tell the victims to keep quiet so the church could conduct its own investigation. In the meantime, troop leaders and volunteers accused of sex abuse would be allowed to continue in their roles or be assigned to another troop, the suits said. Church spokesman Sam Penrod said in a statement that the faith has zero tolerance for abuse of any kind and that the serious allegations require thorough investigation. He called it inaccurate to say that the faith had access to files that had names of banned Scout leaders and said that the church hasn't seen the records that allegedly back the accusations. All seven victims are asking for a jury to award an unspecified sum for medical expenses, pain and suffering. They are also seeking punitive damages for the "outrageous conduct" of church officials. The church sponsored at least seven troops in Arizona in metro Phoenix and Tucson, according to attorneys. The suits were all filed earlier this month — six in Maricopa County Superior Court and one in Pima County Superior Court. The allegations of sexual abuse touch all troops between 1972 and 2009.

Extraction Oil & Gas has won a judge’s approval to restructure as a standalone company and could emerge from chapter 11 bankruptcy in early 2021, the Denver Business Journal reported. The Denver-based oil producer received confirmation of its reorganization plan from from Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Sontchi on Dec. 23. Extraction Oil & Gas filed for chapter 11 protection June 14 to reorganize and free itself from $1.7 billion in debt it couldn’t pay, either by negotiating a debt-for-equity swap with lenders, or by merging or being acquired by another oil and gas company. It failed to strike a deal with potential acquirers or partners in a merger. Extraction now has a court-approved plan to emerge from bankruptcy court protection as a standalone business.

A bankruptcy trustee recovered and distributed $12 million to thousands of creditors who were victims of a $332 million investment fraud, the South Florida Business Journal reported. Cassel Salpeter and Co. chairman and co-founder James S. Cassel, who was appointed director of 1 Global Capital's estate in bankruptcy court, said that about 3,750 creditors that invested in the company received a payment. To date, Cassel has recovered $124 million on behalf of 1 Global Capital victims, after distributing an initial $112 million payment to investors in 2019. Cassel said that the liquidating trust will continue to pursue actions to generate additional returns to creditors. Hallandale Beach-based 1 Global Capital, which provided loans to small businesses, filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2018. Soon after the bankruptcy filing, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed civil fraud charges against the company and former CEO Carl Ruderman, claiming they fraudulently raised $332 million from investors. According to the SEC lawsuit, 1 Global Capital overstated the value of investors’ accounts and their rate of returns and misappropriated at least $32 million to personally benefit Ruderman. Ruderman agreed to disgorge $32 million in ill-gotten gains and pay a $15 million civil penalty to settle the charges. Many of the scheme's victims were elderly individuals who invested between $50,000 and $100,000, Cassel said.

Bankruptcy creditors are pointing to a trove of decade-old documents as they probe whether members of the billionaire Sackler family improperly took funds out of Purdue Pharma LP, the maker of OxyContin, to keep the assets away from victims of the U.S. opioid epidemic, Bloomberg News reported. Creditors including U.S. states, cities and counties cite recently unsealed memos and emails involving the Sacklers, whose company has twice pleaded guilty to illegally marketing OxyContin painkillers. Creditors say the documents are among “powerful circumstantial evidence” that the Sacklers were worried as early as 2007 about being sued personally and discussed ways to protect their fortunes. “Ask yourself how long it will take these lawyers to figure out that we might settle with them if they can freeze our assets and threaten us,” David Sackler, son of one of the company’s co-owners, said in a May 2007 email included in the unsealed files. The company’s first guilty plea came that same month. “We’re rich?” wrote Sackler, then a 27-year-old money manager who wasn’t employed at the company and didn’t then have a say in strategy. “For how long? Until which suits get through to the family?” Family representatives say that the Sacklers didn’t do anything improper. If creditors succeed in showing the Sacklers made what the creditors claim were “improper transfers,” a judge could order them to make repayments. The documents — made public this month in Purdue’s bankruptcy case — are part of an ongoing fight between more than 20 state attorneys general and Sackler family members over $10 billion the creditors said was improperly moved out of Purdue in the decade following 2007, and whether opioid victims should get some of those funds. The Sacklers are offering to turn over control of the drugmaker to state and local governments and personally pay $3 billion. Creditors say that’s not enough. Purdue filed for bankruptcy last year, citing lawsuits from state and local governments. Creditors scour bankrupt companies for certain pre-filing transfers because owners aren’t allowed to take valuable assets if they think the firm may seek bankruptcy protection. Purdue’s creditors argue in court filings that family members ramped up their efforts to draw money out of the drugmaker after the company’s 2007 plea, amounting to “more than $10.3 billion over the next 10 years — more than 90% of Purdue’s total free cash flow,” according to creditors’ filings.

Renovate America Inc. has filed for bankruptcy protection after tighter regulations and lawsuits chased it out of the business of assessments for energy improvement financing, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Renovate America bowed out of the assessment business in October, according to papers filed Dec. 22 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del. by Chief Financial Officer Christopher Powell, who blamed the company’s exit from the market on tighter underwriting rules and growing litigation. The loans backed by Renovate’s assessments, which allowed consumers to update their properties with the latest green-energy gadgets, wound up complicating efforts to refinance mortgages or sell homes. Local governments that authorized these financing deals got peppered with complaints from consumers about what they were told about the assessments and the loans, which were linked to property taxes.

While the Archdiocese of Agana has yet to compensate nearly 300 Guam clergy sex abuse survivors, it has already paid or been ordered to pay some $3.9 million of the $4.38 million in attorneys' and real estate professionals' fees and costs in its nearly two-year bankruptcy case, the Guam Daily Post reported. These figures are based on a review of proposed, awarded and paid amounts contained in documents filed in the District Court of Guam in 2019 and 2020. The numbers include recent fourth interim fee applications that the federal court will hear in January, amounting to about $480,601. The fourth interim fee applications cover bills for services rendered only from Aug. 1 to Nov. 30, 2020. After review and scrutiny of the proposed billings, inclusive of fees and reimbursable costs, District Court Chief Judge Frances Tydingco-Gatewood reduced many of the amounts from the first three billing cycles, saying the higher the legal fees, the lower the amount that could go to clergy sex abuse survivors. Other defendants in clergy sex abuse cases — including the Sisters of Mercy, the Capuchin Franciscans and the Boy Scouts of America — already have settled with some of the abuse survivors. The settlement amounts have been kept confidential. The archdiocese and other defendants are still in mediation to try to settle the abuse lawsuits, and the billing meters will continue to tick. If settlements fail, the clergy sex abuse lawsuits against the archdiocese could go to trial.