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Takata Corp.'s bankruptcy filing last month was meant to draw a line under the auto industry's biggest safety recall, but last week's announcement of more air bag inflator recalls suggests automakers could face fresh liabilities in the future, Reuters reported yesterday. In late 2015, U.S. regulators gave Takata until the end of 2019 to prove that its air bag inflators — which now have a drying agent to combat moisture that can degrade the ammonium nitrate compound in its inflators, with potentially lethal results — are also safe. If Takata fails that test — and some industry consultants, explosives experts and former employees question whether the workaround guarantees safety over the long term — it may have to recall all its ammonium nitrate-based inflators. That could include the around 100 million inflators already slated for recall, and 100 million inflators Takata has produced to date with a drying agent. Takata says a third of those desiccated inflators have been used as replacements in the ongoing recall, with the rest going to automakers as part of regular supply contracts. Takata's automaker customers, which have so far borne much of the estimated $10 billion cost of replacing faulty bag inflators, could be on the hook for future liabilities in the event that Takata fails to prove that the desiccant workaround is sufficient.

The RadioShack brand will live on after a family office already owed $23 million by the bankrupt U.S. electronics chain agreed to assume ownership of it, as no other buyers submitted better bids this week, Reuters reported yesterday. An affiliate of Kensington Capital Holdings, a family office based in the Boston suburbs, is set to acquire RadioShack's intellectual property after it submitted a $15 million bid. Kensington had made a $23 million loan to RadioShack after it exited its first bankruptcy two years ago and had secured a deal with U.S. wireless carrier Sprint Corp. to co-brand 1,400 stores. The deadline for other bidders to make offers was Tuesday, but no better proposals were received.

Interested parties have until the end of this week to bid on about 5,500 artifacts from the sunken ship Titanic, some intellectual property relating to video footage and imagery of the wreck, and the rights to explore and salvage the wreckage site for more objects, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The auction is the first of its kind for the ship’s treasures and goods, and comes more than a year after Premier Exhibitions Inc., the company behind the traveling “Titanic” and “Bodies” exhibitions, filed for bankruptcy. Potential buyers are bidding on such trinkets as a bronze cherub from the grand staircase used by first-class passengers, a blue sapphire ring surrounded by 14 small diamonds, a steward’s jacket and a silver-plated chocolate pot used in the ship’s first-class restaurant. Private-equity firms and other companies have reportedly already expressed interest in the sale. Offers are due Friday, and if more than one is received, an auction is scheduled for November.

Charter carrier Dynamic International Airways LLC, which offers charter flights to regional cities in China, filed for bankruptcy protection Wednesday to stabilize its business, which it says has been hobbled by legal issues and management turnover, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The North Carolina-based airline said it would use the breathing space afforded in chapter 11 to get a grip on pending litigation and accounting problems. The company, which is privately owned, intends to get its affairs in order while in bankruptcy so it can transition the airline from providing charter flights to scheduled flights. Dynamic International Airways Chief Executive Paul Kraus said in a declaration filed in the bankruptcy court that the company “has encountered significant challenges in finding and retaining qualified employees.” The airline has had three chief executive officers, four chief operating officers and three chief financial officers since 2013, court papers say. The turnover resulted in the use of different accounting systems and operations tracking systems that caused significant cash losses, as well as “some confusion and some items to be overlooked and not properly handled,” Kraus said.

Paragon Offshore Ltd. announced yesterday that it has emerged from bankruptcy after completing a restructuring that eliminated $2.3 billion of debt, the Houston Business Journal reported yesterday. The successor company to Paragon Offshore PLC, which filed for bankruptcy in February 2016 with $2.96 billion of debt, also named a new board of directors. The search for a new CEO is underway. Following the restructuring, the new Paragon has about $165 million of available cash on its balance sheet and $85 million of new debt. Its new equity will not be listed on an exchange, and the company will not file any further reports with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Paragon PLC will be deregistered from the SEC. Read more. 

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Lawyers for people injured by Takata Corp's defective air bags told a U.S. judge yesterday that there was "no basis" for an "unjust" request by the company's U.S. unit to halt hundreds of consumer lawsuits against car companies that used the air bags, Reuters reported. When the U.S. unit filed for bankruptcy in June, litigation against the unit for injuries, wrongful death, economic losses and breaches of consumer protection laws were automatically stayed. Last week, Takata's U.S. unit asked for a preliminary injunction that would halt similar lawsuits against Honda Motor Co., Toyota Motor Corp. and other car companies that used the air bags. Halting the litigation would help Takata sell its healthy business to Key Safety Systems, which is owned by China's Ningbo Joyson Electronic Corp, according to TK Holdings Inc., the U.S. unit. Funds from that $1.6 billion proposed sale will be used to compensate injured drivers, according to court papers filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del.

One of the nation's biggest carpet makers filed for bankruptcy today in federal bankruptcy court in Rome, Ga., the Chattanooga Times Free Press reported today. Beaulieu Group LLC said that it will reorganize its finances under chapter 11 protection after suffering losses from its traditional carpet business. The company said that its existing lenders, which Beaulieu said are owed between $50 million and $100 million, have agreed to continue to support the company by providing debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing. Such debt will be combined with cash from operations to ensure the company continues operations while it restructures its debt and finances.

Spurning brides-to-be across the country, a wedding dress retailer got its own case of cold feet Friday, filing for bankruptcy and closing all its stores, USA Today reported. Alfred Angelo Bridal, a national chain with 60 of its own stores and 1,400 locations worldwide that sell its products, filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation in Florida, where it is based. Alfred Angelo plans to liquidate its assets, said Patricia Redmond, a lawyer for the Florida firm Stearns Weaver Miller that handled the bankruptcy filing. Store managers were not alerted to the closure, according to the Wall Street Journal, and many stores were locked up for the last time on Thursday with no advance warning to customers or employees. Some Alfred Angelo customers who hadn't received their orders took to Twitter on Friday to voice their frustration. With weddings approaching and little time to find another dress, many brides were also unsure whether they would receive a refund on a dress they’d paid for but had not yet received. Redmond said that she had received "thousands" of e-mails from concerned women, but that the company would work to fulfill all orders that had already been purchased from Alfred Angelo.

The global recall of Takata Corp's defective air bags widened last week and the number of confirmed deaths rose, but legal experts said that the bigger worry for car companies caught in the fallout is playing out in a Delaware bankruptcy courtroom, Reuters reported today. Earlier this month, people injured by the air bags, which degrade over time and can inflate with excessive force, were appointed to their own official committee in the Japanese company's U.S. bankruptcy, giving them a powerful voice in the proceedings. This committee, which includes people whose cars lost value due to the recall, will be pitted against Honda Motor Co, Toyota Motor Corp, and other automakers. The car companies have been trying to use the bankruptcy to limit their liability for installing the faulty air bags, said Kevin Dean, a Motley Rice attorney who represents injured drivers on the committee. Because the committee has official status, Takata must provide it with funds which can be used to investigate the automakers' liability or to challenge financial assumptions. Without a committee, plaintiffs' lawyers would typically have to pay for that themselves. “If I were a plaintiffs’ lawyer, this would be a golden goose for me,” said John Pottow, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, of the appointment of the special committee. In the Takata case, the committee of injured drivers will sit alongside another made up of suppliers and vendors, who are likely more interested in the future of the business than compensation disputes, according to bankruptcy attorneys who are not involved in the case. Both committees were appointed by the U.S. Trustee's Office. Seventeen fatalities, including one confirmed last week, and at least 180 injuries have been tied to Takata's air bags since at least 2009. Read more. 

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Oyo Sportstoys, a maker of sports mini-figures and toys, has filed for chapter 11 protection, according to court documents, the Worcester Business Journal reported yesterday. The company has between $1 million and $10 million in estimated assets, and about the same in estimated liabilities, according to a Tuesday filing signed by company President Thomas Skripps. The six-year-old company raised $14 million in its first five years, according to the Marlborough Economic Development Corp. In 2015, it received a 10-year, tax-increment-financing agreement from the city to spend $8 million improving its facility in exchange for 195 new jobs.