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Bennu Oil & Gas LLC, which was formed to purchase ATP Oil & Gas Corp.’s troubled drilling assets following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, has filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy protection, indicating its intention to liquidate, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Bennu, whose privately held operations were concentrated off the coast of Louisiana, sought chapter 7 on Wednesday at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston. The company no longer operates, court papers show. In August, Texas’ Beal Bank USA successfully forced an affiliate of Bennu Oil & Gas, Bennu Titan LLC, into an involuntary chapter 11 bankruptcy and later won a judge’s order appointing an independent trustee to take control of the affiliate. Bennu Titan owns an offshore multicolumn drilling and production platform in the Gulf of Mexico that was being used by Bennu Oil & Gas. The platform has since been shut down. Beal Bank, the Dallas-based bank founded by Texas billionaire Andrew Beal, says it is owed $180.4 million stemming from a $350 million term loan it made to Bennu Titan in 2010. Court papers show a lack of funding from the parent crippled Bennu Titan’s ability to service its debt and ultimately sealed its fate. Read more. (Subscription required.)

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Judges in Canada and the U.S. yesterday approved materials explaining Nortel Networks Corp.’s creditor-repayment plan, inaugurating the beginning of the end of one of the priciest bankruptcies on record, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Yesterday’s court hearings launched the formal process of polling creditors on the bankruptcy plans that will end Nortel’s corporate life after eight years in bankruptcy, and divide the $7.3 billion in proceeds from its global going-out-of-business sale. Creditors have to weigh in formally, and the Nortel distribution schemes need to pass another court test, but checks may finally go out next year to creditors, including employees put out of work in 2009 when the telecommunications icon was swept under in the global recession.

Texas power company Energy Future Holdings Corp. will start hearings in February to confirm its chapter 11 bankruptcy exit plan and its proposed sale of its power-line business to NextEra Energy Inc. for $18.6 billion, a judge said yesterday. Those hearings had been scheduled to begin yesterday, but were postponed after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled last month that the company owed holders of its first-lien and second-lien notes about $800 million more than anticipated. The company's plan is based on a sale of its main asset, its stake in the Texas-based Oncor power distribution business, to NextEra Energy of Juno Beach, Fla. Energy Future yesterday filed a modified plan of reorganization that essentially shifted the cost of last month's appeals court ruling to holders of junior unsecured notes by reducing their payout by roughly $800 million. Those junior creditors argued to U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Sontchi that NextEra should be on the hook for making the unanticipated payment to the first-lien and second-lien noteholders. If the Florida power company did not want to pay, then it should drop its merger plan, their lawyer argued.

Performance Sports Group Ltd. said that bankruptcy courts in the U.S. and Canada have approved the stalking-horse bid for the company, made by Sagard Capital Partners LP and Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. Sagard and Fairfax intend to buy most of the Bauer ice hockey gear maker's assets and its North American units for $575 million. The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware and the Ontario Superior Court of Justice also approved an auction for Jan. 30, 2017, where other interested parties can bid for the company's assets. Under the bidding procedures, interested parties must submit bids, to buy substantially all of the company's assets, on or before Jan. 25, 2017.

Residential solar systems company Verengo Inc. canceled the bankruptcy auction for its assets after no other bidders stepped forward to challenge a roughly $12 million offer from a unit of Crius Energy LLC, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Verengo’s lawyers said that they didn’t receive any qualified competing bids by Monday’s deadline, prompting it to cancel an auction scheduled for today. Verengo will instead seek court approval of the sale to its stalking-horse bidder Crius Solar Fulfillment at a hearing on Dec. 13, according to papers filed on Tuesday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del. Crius Solar is offering to forgive $11.7 million in debts, including up to $2 million in bankruptcy financing, to acquire Verengo’s assets through what’s called a credit bid.

Hedge fund Coliseum Capital Management LLC, the third-largest shareholder of Performance Sports Group Ltd., said that it was in talks with a third party related to a potential deal involving the maker of Bauer ice hockey gear, Reuters reported. Performance Sports, which filed for bankruptcy protection in October, has received a stalking-horse bid from its largest shareholder Sagard Capital Partners LP and Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. Sagard and Fairfax have agreed to buy most of the company's assets and its North American units for $575 million. Coliseum Capital said yesterday in a regulatory filing that it had received consent from Performance Sports' financial adviser to begin discussions with an affiliate of one of the buyers of the sports gear maker.

Shuttered liberal-arts school Dowling College sought chapter 11 protection yesterday in order to sell its Long Island campuses, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Dowling bankruptcy attorney Sean C. Southard said yesterday that the school, which ceased operating in August after losing its accreditation, will use the breathing room of bankruptcy to sell its real estate and other remaining assets “for the maximum value achievable under the circumstances.” Dowling has two campuses to its name, one in Oakdale, N.Y., and the other in Shirley, N.Y. The school estimates its total assets to be worth between $100 million and $500 million, according to papers filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Central Islip, N.Y. It reported debts of $50 million to $100 million.

West Virginia regulators have settled a lawsuit brought against Alpha Natural Resources over concerns about the coal producer’s reclamation obligations as it emerges from bankruptcy, the Associated Press reported today. A Virginia court approved Alpha’s bankruptcy plan in July. But in November, Alpha revealed $100 million in unaccounted-for expenses. The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, worried that the burden put the company at further risk of financial failure, then filed a lawsuit against Alpha. Under the settlement announced yesterday, Alpha agreed to post its Boone County headquarters as collateral, appraised at $6.3 million. In addition, Contura Energy Inc., which bought much of Alpha’s assets, will post a $4 million letter of credit and issue a secured $4.5 million guaranty of Alpha’s obligations, each through the end of 2018.

The U.S. Department of the Interior filed an objection on Monday to the plan that Samson Resources’ creditors have proposed for the company, the Tulsa (Okla.) World reported today. The federal government’s objection was filed in respect to the disclosure statement for the joint chapter 11 plan for Samson Resources and its debtor affiliates. Among the Interior Department’s objections is the failure to disclose which wells could be abandoned under the plan and how the plan intends to address Samson’s decommissioning and environmental obligations. The plan states that Samson’s hydrocarbon interests “shall be divested, sold, or otherwise disposed of at the sole discretion of the Plan Administrator” or “abandoned on the effective date.” The Department of the Interior’s objection states that without this specific information, creditors cannot determine how their claims might be affected and lack the facts necessary to weigh the unsecured creditors’ committee’s plan against its alternatives.