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A few weeks after announcing “significant” layoffs, Suniva, a Georgia-based manufacturer of solar cells and modules, has filed for chapter 11 protection, Solar Industry reported yesterday. Suniva revealed the layoffs at both of its U.S. plants in late March but provided few details; however, WARN Act disclosure documents showed that the company cut 131 jobs at its Norcross, Ga., facility and 59 jobs at its Saginaw, Mich., location. While some local reports suggested the Saginaw plant had been completely shut down, the WARN Act document said that the plant “will remain open with a reduced staff,” though the filing did not specify whether the plant would continue production or operations. In its brief company announcement, Suniva blamed global module oversupply conditions and charged, “The reductions come as U.S. solar manufacturers face attack from the continued growth of global manufacturing overcapacity, particularly in Asia, and the ongoing influx of foreign imports, which continue to drive down domestic prices.”

Just nine months after a federal bankruptcy court approved its reorganization plan, Venoco LLC re-entered chapter 11 proceedings yesterday, the Pacific Coast Business Times reported. Venoco said that under its plan for bankruptcy reorganization, Platform Holly and the South Elwood Oil Field are being transferred back to the state of California which will oversee the winding down of operations. Platform Holly has been idled since the May 2015 rupture of a Plains All American pipeline near Refugio Beach that spilled an estimated 142,000 gallons of crude oil into the ocean. Pipeline closures triggered Venoco’s initial filing on July 14, 2016 and Venoco’s court-approved restructuring plan reduced an estimated $1 billion in debt. But the Plains pipelines remain shut indefinitely and in its statement on April 17, Venoco said that it would now ask the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware to approve a plan for its assets to be “sold or wound down.”

NextEra Energy Inc. is in talks aimed at saving its acquisition of Oncor, one of the country’s largest electricity transmissions businesses, after Texas regulators rejected the deal, lawyers told a bankruptcy judge yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported. Texas’ Public Utility Commission last week blocked NextEra’s proposed takeover as a transaction not in the public interest. The “no” from regulators upset not only NextEra’s $18.4 billion transaction but also the drive to wrap up one of the largest bankruptcy proceedings on record, the $42 billion bankruptcy of Energy Future Holdings Corp., which owns most of Oncor. A bankruptcy-exit plan confirmed earlier this year for Energy Future is built around the sale of Oncor to NextEra. Now NextEra is “exploring every alternative and action to try to resuscitate the deal,” Howard Seife, lawyer for NextEra, said yesterday at a bankruptcy court hearing.

The trustee of Rickmers Maritime said on Wednesday that the container ship operator would be winding down its business after failing to reach an agreement with creditors that would allow it to continue operating, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Rickmers Trust Management Pte. Ltd. said that a lack of liquidity and new investors had caused the company to conclude it is “impracticable to continue.” The trustee also said there is a potential buyer for Rickmers’ assets, which could allow the company to make a cash distribution to unsecured creditors, but cautioned that no deal has been finalized. Rickmers’ unitholders aren’t likely to recover anything, the trustee said. Rickmers originally had hoped to reorganize and in December sought approval from bondholders to restructure bond debt of 100 million Singapore dollars ($71.5 million), which would have allowed it to also restructure its secured bank debt with a new $260 million loan.

Bankruptcy lawyers breathed a sigh of relief when Justice Stephen G. Breyer issued a relatively narrow opinion in Czyzewski v. Jevic Holding Corp. But after a few weeks of reflection, Prof. Stephen Lubben wonders if The decision didn’t lay the groundwork for years of future litigation, according to Lubben’s commentary in the New York Times DealBook blog on Friday. The Supreme Court held that when a bankruptcy court orders a chapter 11 case dismissed, it can’t also order the distribution of the debtor’s assets in a way that contradicts the order of payment via the “absolute priority rule” in a bankruptcy liquidation. The court went out of its way to avoid saying anything definitive about all the other times priority is violated in a chapter 11 case. In reaching this conclusion, Justice Breyer distinguishes most of the other priority violations as interim distributions, which might plausibly make most creditors better off in the long run. He contrasts these with final distributions, like those at work in Jevic, that decide creditors’ recovery rights once and for all.

The Federal Home Loan Bank of New York has agreed to pay $70 million to the remnants of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. to settle a lawsuit over soured interest-rate swaps, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLBNY) announced the settlement in a regulatory filing on Wednesday as a trial on the dispute was under way in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York. Lehman and its Special Financing unit sued FHLBNY in 2015 for more than $150 million it said it was owed from its position on 356 swaps and options transactions. Lehman said it was in the money on the swaps at the time of its 2008 bankruptcy filing. Although Lehman officially exited bankruptcy protection in 2012, its derivatives team is still wrangling with creditors over billions of dollars in disputed claims. Swaps and other derivatives represent a significant source of cash for Lehman creditors waiting to be paid more than eight years after the investment bank filed for bankruptcy protection. FHLBNY used the swaps with Lehman as a hedge against rising interest rates with the bank paying a fixed rate to Lehman and the investment bank paying a floating rate. If rates fell, Lehman was in the money. Lehman’s chapter 11 filing on the morning of Sept. 15, 2008, froze financial markets and constituted an “event of default” that triggered the termination of millions of derivatives transactions involving the investment bank. Three days later on Sept. 18, FHLBNY terminated its swaps with a notional amount of $16.5 billion with the bankrupt investment bank.

The U.S. arm of British lingerie company Agent Provocateur has filed for chapter 11 protection to execute a sale of its assets, which were stranded when the company went bankrupt in the U.K., MarketWatch.com reported yesterday Agent Provocateur Inc. filed for bankruptcy in the U.S. on Tuesday, having reached an agreement to sell 12 of its U.S. stores to Four Marketing Group. Fashion agency Four Marketing, which also bought Agent Provocateur's U.K. operation, has agreed to provide the U.S. company with a $500,000 bankruptcy loan and serve as a stalking horse bidder during a bankruptcy auction for the stores. Parent company Agent Provocateur Ltd. entered administration in the U.K. in March after accounting irregularities surfaced late last year, which would have required the company's private-equity sponsor, 3i Group PLC, to invest substantially more, according to court documents.

Seeking to restructure or sell its operations, York County, Pa.-based Unilife Corp. today filed for chapter 11 protection in Delaware court, the Central Penn Business Journal reported yesterday. In filing the motion, Unilife said that it would look to sell its business but is leaving open the option of continuing operations, according to a company filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company's hopes for restructuring rest on a $7.5 million debtor-in-possession loan commitment made by ROS Acquisition Offshore LP, an affiliate of OrbiMed Advisors, an investment group that has lent Unilife at least $70 million since 2014. The DIP loan is subject to court approval and would come in two installments: of $1 million and $6.5 million, according to the SEC filing.

Medical device maker Halt Medical Inc. yesterday filed for chapter 11 protection after a key investor pulled the plug on a financing deal the company relied on to manage its operations, the Wall Street Journal reported. The California-based Halt developed a device called Acessa, which earned U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval in 2012 to treat uterine fibroids. The company says that the treatment doesn’t require hysterectomy, or removal of the uterus, as is often prescribed, and is an outpatient procedure. The device is also approved in Europe, Canada, Mexico and Israel and has been used more than 1,500 times since its FDA approval, Halt said. Sales of the device totaled $1.1 million last year and $875,000 in 2015. But bringing a medical device to market and through a government-approval process is a costly endeavor and, as of Wednesday, the company said it has $156.3 million in liabilities. Virtually all of it, $155.7 million, is owed to bondholders. Much of that bond debt is held by American Capital Ltd., which has provided Halt financing since 2007. However, in January American Capital was acquired by private-equity firm Ares Capital Corp. Shortly after the acquisition, American Capital said that it would no longer be lending to Halt, the company said in court documents. Read more. (Subscription required.) 

For more on health care insolvency, be sure to pick up a copy of the ABI Health Care Insolvency Manual, Third Edition from the ABI Bookstore. 

Republic Airways Holdings Inc. is a step closer to leaving bankruptcy after a judge denied a late challenge to the regional air carrier’s chapter 11 exit plan, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane on Monday overruled a plan objection related to aircraft leases brought by an affiliate of transportation-equipment financier Residco. The challenge has delayed a ruling on Republic’s chapter 11 plan of reorganization for weeks. Republic has said its ability to hire and retain pilots in 2017 could be affected if the airline’s stay in bankruptcy is extended much longer.