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The office of Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell on Monday filed a petition objecting to the proposed terms of the chapter 11 voluntary bankruptcy of Vantage Travel, the Boston-based international travel company that went out of business last month, the Boston Globe reported. In a 15-page petition filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Boston, Campbell joined with the attorney general of New York in saying the proposed terms of liquidation of Vantage’s paltry remaining assets doesn’t do enough for consumers. Thousands of Vantage customers are owed a total of more than $100 million in refunds for trips the company booked but then postponed or canceled. The attorneys general in New York and Pennsylvania earlier this year sued not only Vantage on behalf of customers in their state, but also Vantage’s founder and longtime owner Hank Lewis, who may have personal assets that could be subject to the proceedings. The suits accused Vantage and Lewis of “persistent fraudulent conduct” and “deceptive and unfair business practices” in the handling of customer deposits. In Monday’s filing, Campbell’s office said the bankruptcy proceedings unfairly treats customers as “general unsecured” creditors, when they should be treated as priority creditors for at least the first $3,350 owed to them. It also says future travel credits offered to customers “are really just coupons” which aren’t appropriate for settling claims.

Three weeks after a 40-year-old Montana-based trucking company and freight brokerage abruptly ceased operations, Meadow Lark Agency and its affiliate, Meadow Lark Transport, filed for bankruptcy liquidation on Monday, Freight Waves reported. The companies, headquartered in Billings, Mont., filed for chapter 7 protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Montana. In its petition, the Meadow Lark entities list assets of between $10 million and $50 million and liabilities of between $1 million and $10 million. The petition states they have up to 5,000 creditors and that no funds will be available to unsecured creditors once it pays administrative fees. The petition lists assets of nearly $15.4 million in receivables from Meadow Lark Transport.

Local mattress company Direct Mattress Inc. and its associated businesses filed for bankruptcy last month, following a series of lawsuits from its landlords over unpaid rent, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. Bankruptcy documents reflect that the company's estimated assets and liabilities are both between $1 million and $10 million. Filed documents also reflect that the company will continue to operate. Headquartered in St. Peters, the firm has 11 store locations around the St. Louis region. This year alone, Direct Mattress has been peppered with a number of lawsuits totaling nearly $1 million in unpaid rent from half a dozen landlords. Local creditors with unsecured claims include $480,000 to Carrollton Bank; $252,176 to Dierbergs Wentzville; $99,858 to St. Louis Post-Dispatch; $260,971 to USR-DESCO Washington Crossing LLC; and $106,617 to Water Tower Development LLC.

Denn-Ohio LLC, a Denny’s franchisee in Kentucky, Michigan, and Ohio, has filed for chapter 11 protection, seeking to close two more diner units and facing a hearing in December, court documents indicate, NRN.com reported. Denn-Ohio, which expects to have eight diners remaining after it closes units in Toledo, Ohio, and Kalamazoo, Mich., filed its chapter 11 petition on Oct. 31 in the Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Michigan. The presiding bankruptcy judge filed an order for a hearing on the case Dec. 13. Filings indicate the company, which once operated 27 Denny’s locations, expects after the Toledo and Kalamazoo closures, to have units in Kentucky (Elizabethtown and Louisville), Michigan (Grand Rapids and Wyoming) and Ohio (Berkshire Township, Columbus, Jeffersonville, Perrysburg).

There were 631 commercial chapter 11 filings registered in October 2023, an increase of 106 percent from the 306 filings registered in October 2022, according to data provided by Epiq Bankruptcy, the leading provider of U.S. bankruptcy filing data. Overall commercial filings increased 14 percent to 2,188 in October 2023, up from the 1,916 commercial filings registered in October 2022. Small business filings, captured as subchapter V elections within chapter 11, increased 47 percent to 176 in October 2023, up from 120 in August 2022. Total bankruptcy filings were 40,628 in October 2023, a 24 percent increase from the October 2022 total of 32,707. Individual bankruptcy filings totaled 38,440 in October 2023, registering a 25 percent increase from the October 2022 30,791 filing total. There were 22,473 individual chapter 7 filings in October 2023, a 31 percent increase over the 17,125 filings recorded in October 2022, and there were 15,901 individual chapter 13 filings in October 2023, a 17 percent increase over the 13,618 filings in October the previous year. “Increased prices for goods and services, along with higher borrowing costs, add to the economic challenges faced by distressed families and businesses,” said ABI Executive Director Amy Quackenboss. “Bankruptcy provides a proven process for struggling consumers and companies to alleviate their intensifying debt loads and a chance for a financial fresh start.”

In a closing argument, a prosecutor told New York jurors Wednesday to follow the overwhelming evidence of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried 's “pyramid of deceit” to find him guilty of defrauding customers and investors of at least $10 billion, while a defense lawyer said prosecutors were unfairly portraying an honest entrepreneur as a monster, Reuters reported. Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicolas Roos launched a day of closings in Manhattan federal court by saying Bankman-Fried was at fault for stealing billions of dollars from investors worldwide despite four days of testimony in which Bankman-Fried insisted that he was unaware that his customers' deposits were at risk until weeks before his companies collapsed. “He told a story and he lied to you,” Roos told jurors a day after Bankman-Fried concluded his testimony at the monthlong trial. The prosecutor said Bankman-Fried wanted jurors to believe that he had no idea what was happening at his companies or what was happening was wrong, but that his words conflicted with the testimony of his fellow executives, his “partners in crime,” and other evidence including financial documents and public statements Bankman-Fried had made.

Lordstown Motors Corp. on Tuesday got the green light from a Delaware bankruptcy court judge to begin soliciting votes for the electric vehicle developer’s plan of bankruptcy reorganization, the Cleveland Business Journal reported. U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Mary Walrath approved Lordstown Motors’ disclosure statement — the document that contains detailed information to enable a creditor to make an informed decision about the debtor’s plan of reorganization — during a Tuesday morning hearing. Lordstown Motors and its attorneys will use the disclosure statement to solicit votes from creditors and shareholders to approve or reject the company’s plan to emerge from bankruptcy court, likely late this year or early next year.

Water Gremlin Co., rattled in recent years by pollution scandals, has filed for chapter 11 protection and is in the process of trying to sell the company, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported. The White Bear Township, Minn.-based company, founded in 1949, makes lead battery terminals and fishing sinkers. Water Gremlin had significant clashes with regulators in 2019 over pollution from its facility. The company had to pay more than $7 million in fines to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) over toxic air emissions. The MPCA's commissioner at the time said the company "put people's health at risk." The MPCA levied another $325,000 fine in 2021 over alleged violations of hazardous waste and industrial storm water rules. The MPCA issued a new air emissions permit with "more stringent emissions limits and operating requirements" to the Water Gremlin facility in June. In July, Tokyo-based Okabe Co. Ltd., parent company of Water Gremlin, said that the litigation could lead to Water Gremlin "incurring substantial liability." An affidavit filed in the bankruptcy case cites possible liability from lawsuits related to the pollution cases and a decline in sales. The company's sales fell from $57.8 million in 2018 to $46.8 million in 2022, according to the court papers.

Hwa Yuan Szechuan, one of Manhattan’s most critically acclaimed Chinese restaurants, filed for bankruptcy on Monday, a sign of the pressures that restaurants around the country are facing as they fight to keep their slice of consumers’ stretched food budgets, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Started by Taiwanese immigrant Yu Fa Tang in the late 1960s, Hwa Yuan has operated in its current location in New York’s Chinatown since 2018. Famed for popularizing cold sesame noodles in the U.S. and frequented by A-list celebrities such as Jennifer Lawrence and Gwyneth Paltrow, the restaurant hasn’t recovered from the impact of COVID-19-related lockdowns on its finances, according to court papers. Even though it received a publicity boost when former New York Mayor Bill de Blasio visited the restaurant in February 2021 to promote the resumption of indoor dining in New York City, Hwa Yuan defaulted on its mortgage because of its pandemic-related loss of revenue and now faces an imminent foreclosure from its mortgage lender, according to court papers. The restaurant’s bankruptcy filing in New York’s Southern District will stave off the foreclosure and give the Tang family time to find a new loan that could repay the defaulted mortgage, court papers said.