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Eidolon Brands and the Ben Hogan Golf Equipment Co. voluntarily filed for chapter 11 protection in the Northern District of Texas, Golf.com reported yesterday. Technically, Ben Hogan Golf is still in business, and is trying to develop a sustainable business plan while raising new capital. Its clubs continue to be sold throughout the country. The company’s top creditors are Perry Ellis International (owed $267,000) and Conti Edgecliff-Sias LLC, the company’s landlord in Forth Worth (owed $77,256.74), according to a report in the Dallas Morning News. Perry Ellis International is the company that licensed the Ben Hogan name to the equipment company.

The 134-bed Louisiana Heart Hospital near Lacombe, La., will close within a month due to rising operating costs and reduced reimbursements, hospital officials announced, NOLA.com reported yesterday. The privately owned hospital also plans to file for bankruptcy. Care for current inpatients will not be interrupted, the hospital said. "Despite strong quality rankings and recent volume growth, Louisiana Heart Hospital has faced significant financial challenges in recent years. Like many hospitals around the nation, we struggle to balance shrinking reimbursements with rising operating costs," said Scott Boudreaux, chief executive officer of Louisiana Heart Hospital & Medical Group. "After many months of careful consideration and review of all available options, it has become clear we can no longer sustain the continued losses and have no choice but to cease operations." Read more.

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

A defense lawyer for an indicted Dewey & LeBoeuf executive wants Steven Davis — the firm's former chairman — to appear as a witness in his retrial, the New York Law Journal reported yesterday. But whether Davis will testify during retrial is an open question. The request suggests that the retrial may not be so similar to the first trial, which resulted in a hung jury in the criminal case against Davis, Stephen DiCarmine and Joel Sanders. Davis signed a deferred prosecution agreement with the Manhattan District Attorney's Office after the mistrial in October 2015, allowing him to avoid retrial. As part of the agreement, prosecutors have agreed to drop charges against him in five years. But prosecutors are continuing with charges against DiCarmine and Sanders, who are accused of misleading investors and lenders about Dewey's finances before the firm's 2012 bankruptcy. Opening arguments are expected to start next week in their case.

A New York pension fund seeking $31 million from Hanjin Shipping Co. asked court permission to investigate ties between the South Korean carrier and its parent entity, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Yesterday’s filing in U.S Bankruptcy Court in New Jersey marks an attempt to draw the Hanjin Group conglomerate into the U.S. bankruptcy of Hanjin Shipping, which filed in August for receivership proceedings in Korea. The maritime carrier sought recognition of its insolvency in the U.S. days later by filing for chapter 15 protection, the section of the U.S. bankruptcy code covering foreign corporate debtors. A longshoremen’s pension fund is pursuing a $31 million “withdrawal liability” from Hanjin Shipping in the courts of both countries, according to yesterday’s filing. That represents the amount the New York Shipping Association-International Longshoremen’s Association Pension Trust Fund says that the carrier owes for pension benefits that will be paid out in the future. The pension fund says it wants to know whether the Hanjin Group conglomerate’s other businesses, including the world’s third-largest cargo airline, Korean Air, may be a close enough relative of the shipping unit that they, too, are liable for the $31 million tab.

Shipping company Toisa Ltd. filed for chapter 11 protection as falling demand for the Bermuda-chartered company's oil-and-gas supply vessels left it running short of cash, according to court documents, Reuters reported yesterday. Toisa, owned by Greek shipping magnate Gregory Callimanopulos, has a global fleet of 26 offshore oil service vessels, 13 tankers and seven bulk ships, according to documents filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. The ship operator said it had more than $1 billion in debt in court documents. Toisa said it has been in talks with lenders this month in London, but sought bankruptcy after several lenders took action on their loans, including seeking to seize the company's ships, according to court documents.

Washington, D.C.’s Hawk ‘n’ Dove bar filed for bankruptcy to catch up on taxes, a move that comes less than three years after an ownership dispute prompted an earlier chapter 11 filing, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The Capitol Hill watering hole filed for bankruptcy protection on Wednesday, along with barbecue-themed sports bar Willie’s Brew and ‘Que located near the Nationals’ Stadium. Together, the restaurants have fallen $525,000 behind in taxes, according to documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Washington. The restaurants will remain open during the case, said lawyer James M. Loots, who called the restaurants “profitable” but declined to say what led them to miss tax payments.

A last-minute bankruptcy filing has halted the sale of an Elkview (W. Va.) shopping center that has been marooned and shuttered since a crucial access bridge was washed away by flooding last summer, the Associated Press reported yesterday. News outlets report a group was forming on the steps of the Kanawha County Courthouse on Tuesday to participate in an auction for the Crossings Mall property, but the scheduled sale was called off after the mall owners filed for chapter 11 protection. The move will likely further delay construction of a new bridge to access the property. About 500 employees who worked at the mall have been unable to return since June floods washed out the bridge.

Peabody Energy Corp., the world's largest private-sector coal miner, can begin seeking creditor votes for a plan to cut $5 billion of debt and exit its Chapter 11 bankruptcy, a U.S. bankruptcy judge said yesterday, Reuters reported. Bankruptcy Judge Barry Schermer overruled objections from opponents including state regulators, shareholders, environmental activists and even former executives. Their complaints can still be debated at a confirmation trial on March 16. Peabody has said that it hopes to emerge from its $8 billion bankruptcy in April with a plan that will raise what lawyers called "a monster" $1.5 billion in private capital and leave it with under $2 billion of debt. Judge Schermer also approved the private capital raising over objections regarding some terms of the offering, including large fees to be awarded to certain creditors as part of the deal. Peabody's biggest creditors support the plan, which the company defended in court over competing proposals by a small group of creditors that would see Peabody exit bankruptcy with about $2.4 billion of debt.

San Antonio’s Bill Hall Jr. Trucking GP LLC filed for chapter 11 reorganization yesterday, nearly three weeks after Bankruptcy Judge Craig Gargotta dismissed the company’s previous bankruptcy case after it missed a November deadline to file a reorganization plan and proof of property insurance, the San Antonio Express-News reported today. The company reported $2.3 million in assets and $4.4 million in liabilities in the latest filing. The company owns a fleet of trucks and trailers that are operated by a related company, Bill Hall Jr. Trucking Ltd., which filed for chapter 11 in November. Trucking GP LLC entered bankruptcy in June, about three months before company manager Frances Hall, who signed the bankruptcy documents, was convicted in her husband’s 2013 murder. She was sentenced to two years in prison. The pair had started the trucking business in 1989 and had been married for 31 years.

Fitness and running retailer Luke's Locker filed for chapter 11 protection on Tuesday, the Dallas Morning News reported yesterday. Luke's Locker president Matt Lucas said that the company is putting a plan together with legal and financial experts with the goal of restoring the business "to its former strength." The company had sales last year of $34 million. Luke's will continue to operate three stores in Dallas and Fort Worth. Luke's Locker filed for Chapter 11 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District in Plano. It listed both assets and liabilities of under $10 million.