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While logistics visibility platform provider Slync had hoped that new management and a $24 million cash infusion in February would be enough to save the FreightTech company after its former CEO was indicted on fraud charges, the company filed for bankruptcy Wednesday and plans to wind down operations and sell off its technology, Freight Waves reported. The timing of Slync’s bankruptcy filing comes nearly three weeks after former Slync CEO Chris Kirchner — who was indicted in May on charges he swindled $25 million from investors for personal use — filed suit on Sept. 26 against his former employer for legal fee advancement and indemnification in Delaware’s Court of Chancery. Kirchner’s suit seeks to have Slync pay his legal bills in his ongoing fraud case involving the U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities Exchange Commission. After Kirchner’s assets were frozen, a federal public defender was assigned to handle his case. According to court documents, after Kirchner’s legal team initially reached out to Slync’s outside counsel on Aug. 30, Slync stated that it “will agree to advance” and that his legal team should reach out to Slync’s CEO John Urban “regarding logistics.” However, less than three weeks later, Slync’s outside counsel told Kirchner’s legal team that Slync “purportedly lacks sufficient liquidity to fund advancement.”

Metropolitan Brewing LLC filed for bankruptcy this month, citing, among other debts, $1 million in back rent owed to its landlord, the Chicago Business Journal reported. According to an Oct. 3 bankruptcy filing in U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Illinois, the Chicago Brewery owes back rent to Rockwell Properties LLC for its 33,000-square-foot site at 3057 N. Rockwell St. Founded in 2008, Metropolitan Brewing signed a 15-year lease for its current location in 2015. The million-dollar figure for back rent is in dispute, however, according to the Chicago Tribune, and will need to be forgiven in full or in part in order for the company to restructure. If Metropolitan Brewing is unable to rework its debt, the business may have to sell or liquidate, said owners Doug and Tracy Hurst. In addition to back rent, Metropolitan Brewing’s debts cited in the filing include $1 million to North Carolina-based Live Oak Banking Co. for an equipment loan and $386,000 to the Small Business Administration for an Economic Impact Disaster Loan. The brewery currently has eight full-time and 14 part-time employees, and last year grossed $2.16 million, according to the report.

Signa Sports United has closed its U.S. offices, which included operations for the Vitus and Nukeproof bike brands and the Hotlines wholesale distribution business, all based in Park City. Signa, headquartered in Berlin, announced earlier this week that it had lost access to a 150 million euro ($159 million) equity commitment from its parent company, BicycleRetailer.com reported. The company has reported serious liquidity challenges and had begun the process of delisting from the New York Stock Exchange. It announced Friday that is preparing to make insolvency filings for its various subsidiaries in the coming days. Tennis-Point GmbH, a Germany-based e-commerce retailer owned by Signa, already has filed for insolvency in Germany. Signa owns the Vitus and Nukeproof brands and the CRC/Wiggle cycling e-commerce sites, along with an array of other e-commerce sites in the tennis, camping and team sports markets. Signa's parent company is controlled by René Benko, an Austrian billionaire.

The judge in Alex Jones’s bankruptcy case ruled on Thursday that he will not be allowed to use his chapter 11 filing to evade paying more than $1 billion in verdicts to families of the Sandy Hook shooting, the New York Times reported. The ruling by Judge Christopher Lopez in a Houston bankruptcy court means that Mr. Jones, the Infowars conspiracy broadcaster, will likely be working the rest of his life to pay his debt to the families. Last year, they were awarded historic damages in defamation lawsuits against him. It also closes off the possibility that Mr. Jones could liquidate Infowars and force the families to accept whatever proceeds result, leaving him free to start a new business. Earlier this year, the families asked that Judge Lopez order Mr. Jones to pay them the full damage awards, with no possibility of a trial or a forced settlement over a lesser amount — in legal terms, to make Mr. Jones’s debts to the families “non-dischargeable” through bankruptcy.

Cryptocurrency exchange FTX's former top lawyer testified yesterday that its founder Sam Bankman-Fried asked him to come up with "legal justifications" for why it was missing $7 billion in customer funds four days before the company declared bankruptcy, Reuters reported. Can Sun, FTX's former general counsel, testified at Bankman-Fried's fraud trial that the company on Nov. 7, 2022, asked investment fund Apollo for emergency capital to cover a wave of customer withdrawals. After Apollo requested FTX's financial statements, Sun testified, either Bankman-Fried or another executive sent him a spreadsheet indicating the cryptocurrency exchange was billions of dollars short of being able to satisfy customer withdrawals and that it also was owed billions of dollars by Bankman-Fried's crypto-focused hedge fund Alameda Research. "I was shocked," said Sun, who testified under a non-prosecution agreement in the third week of the trial in Manhattan federal court. Sun told jurors that after FTX shared the spreadsheet with Apollo, Bankman-Fried pulled him aside at the Bahamas luxury apartment complex where the 31-year-old former billionaire lived and told him Apollo had asked for a legal justification for the missing funds.

Rite Aid plans to plans to close about 7% of its stores initially, as the drugstore chain makes its way through its chapter 11 bankruptcy process, the Associated Press reported. The company submitted a list of 154 stores in a court filing. Most of the chain’s stores are on the East and West Coasts, and the list reflects that. Several locations in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, California and Washington made the list. The company also plans to close some stores in Michigan and Ohio as well. Rite Aid said in a recent Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it has more than 2,200 locations in 17 states. That filing also noted that the company lost about $1.3 billion in the first half of its fiscal year. That’s more than double the $441 million it lost in the same period during the previous fiscal year.

Waits RV Center in West Palm Beach filed for chapter 11 protection with 41 new and used recreational vehicles listed in its inventory, the South Florida Business Journal reported. The company submitted its chapter 11 petition on Oct. 15 in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in West Palm Beach. William Waits signed the petition as president of the company. According to the company’s website, Waits opened the dealership in West Palm Beach in 2010 after previously owning RV dealerships in Vero Beach and Savannah, Georgia, both of which he sold. Waits RV Center listed $1.85 million in assets, mostly its inventory of vehicles, and $2.38 million in debts. Its largest creditors were Wells Fargo with a $600,000 loan, Alpharetta, Georgia-based Northpoint Commercial Finance with $500,000 owed, Fort Lauderdale-based AFC Funding with $400,000 owed, and Tampa-based BayFirst National Bank with a $350,000 SBA loan.

Electric vehicle company Lordstown Motors received U.S. bankruptcy court approval Wednesday to sell its manufacturing assets to a new company affiliated with its founder and former CEO Stephen Burns for $10.2 million, Reuters reported. LAS Capital, majority-owned by Burns, will acquire Lordstown's intellectual property, business records, and machinery including assembly lines for electric vehicle motors and batteries. Bankruptcy Judge Mary Walrath approved the sale at a court hearing in Wilmington, Del., saying that it was the best available offer. The sale does not include any rights to pursue legal claims against Lordstown's directors, officers or equity owners, which will remain with the bankrupt company, Lordstown Motors' attorney David Turetsky said at the court hearing. Several investor groups have already brought claims against Lordstown and its directors, alleging that the electric truck startup misled consumers and investors about its ability to ramp up electric vehicle production. Lordstown Motors filed for bankruptcy in Delaware in June, seeking to wind down its business after failing to resolve a dispute over a promised investment from Taiwan's Foxconn, which had agreed to collaborate on the development of Lordstown's electric pickup truck after its purchase of Lordstown's manufacturing center.

The Boy Scouts of America has received a U.S. bankruptcy judge's approval to pay about $245 million in fees to lawyers and financial advisers who crafted the youth organization's $2.46 billion settlement of sex abuse claims, Reuters reported. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Laurie Selber Silverstein in Wilmington, Del., late on Tuesday mostly approved final fee applications from more than two dozen law firms and advisers who worked on the bankruptcy case. The overall bankruptcy fees could end up closer to $275 million, based on outstanding requests for payment from other groups that participated in the bankruptcy. Judge Silverstein had decried the "staggering" legal fees racked up in the case in 2021, when the number crossed the $100 million threshold. White & Case, which served as lead counsel during the Boy Scouts' bankruptcy, received the highest fee award, at $71 million. Pachulski Stang Ziehl & Jones, which represented the official committee of abuse claimants, received $37.8 million, and Alvarez & Marsal, the Boy Scouts' financial adviser, received $19 million.

Home-decor retailer Z Gallerie is searching for a buyer after it filed bankruptcy for the third time on Monday, Bloomberg News reported. The California-based firm, which sells upscale furniture pieces, said in a Delaware court filing that high mortgage rates and a resulting pullback in home sales crimped demand for its products. It also cited higher import costs, negative cash flow in many of its stores and industry headwinds as factors that led to its filing. It listed assets and liabilities of as much as $100 million each in its bankruptcy petition. The company has secured a $1.1 million debtor-in-possession financial facility from ZG Lending SPV, its existing secured lender, according to court papers. It plans to retain Stump & Company, an M&A advisory firm, to help market its assets. If Z Gallerie can’t find a buyer willing to invest in brick and mortar stores, the company will shut down all of its 21 locations along with its warehouse by the end of the year, Robert Fetterman, the company’s chief financial officer and interim chief executive officer said in a court filing. He also said the firm was prepared to trim its 250-person workforce as a means to save cash.