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Investors in the high-end denim brand Imogene + Willie are trying to force the Nashville, Tenn., retailer into bankruptcy, accusing the founders of misspending company money on luxury clothing items, spa visits and home renovation projects, the Wall Street Journal reported today. In court papers, investors asked a bankruptcy judge to replace Imogene + Willie founders Matt and Carrie Eddmenson with new leadership, saying that the couple spent a $1.5 million cash investment “on themselves to support a lavish lifestyle of personal indulgence while failing to meet any of the critical deadlines for developing a wholesale business.” Founded in 2009, Imogene + Willie designs upscale jeans that quickly became popular with high-end boutiques across the country. The request for new leadership, filed on Tuesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Denver, came from businessman Robert Lamey and his wife, Paige Heid, who invested in the jeans company in July 2013. They are also trying to force the company into chapter 11 protection by filing what is called an involuntary petition, an action that gives the company 20 days to respond. Read more. (Subscription required.) 

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Sports Authority executives on Wednesday won the right to collect bonuses after a bankruptcy liquidation that erased some 14,000 jobs, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Bankruptcy Judge Mary Walrath cleared the company to pay up to $1.5 million to three unnamed senior executives over the protests of a federal bankruptcy watchdog, who called the bonus proposal unfair. With an estimated $400 million worth of merchandise to sell and hundreds of stores to close in a few months, Sports Authority’s bankruptcy sparked one of the largest retail liquidations, the company said. Many suppliers of the defunct athletic-gear seller are getting only fractional recoveries for the goods they shipped to Sports Authority. The Englewood, Colo., company filed for bankruptcy in March and shut the doors on hundreds of stores for good at the end of July. Senior executives who are collecting full pay are seeking to be paid extra for doing “what they are required to do,” said Hannah McCollum, lawyer for U.S. Trustee Andrew Vara, the Justice Department officer who argued against the bonuses.

Aeropostale Inc., the bankrupt teen clothing chain, says a group including mall operators General Growth Properties Inc. and Simon Property Group Inc. has bid for “substantially all” its assets with an eye toward keeping at least 229 stores open, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The going-concern bid would also cover expenses including Aeropostale’s bankruptcy financing, the company said in a filing on Tuesday. The amount of the bid wasn’t disclosed. Lawyers for Aeropostale updated the bankruptcy judge on the auction yesterday, saying that they were working on documentation for the group’s offer, while also evaluating other bids. The auction should conclude today, attorney Ray Schrock told U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane.

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The owner of sports bar chains Fox & Hound and Champps closed 25 locations, even as the company received a lifeline that will enable it to operate long enough to be put up for sale, according to bankruptcy filings and the company, National Restaurant News reported yesterday. Kelly Investment Group, a private-equity firm out of California that specializes in restructurings, has emerged to keep the chains’ owner, Last Call Guarantor LLC, from being shut down. Fun Eats and Drinks LLC, a Kelly subsidiary, recently acquired the rights to $75 million in first lien debt that Last Call had owed to Antares Capital. Kelly Investment then agreed to provide $5.4 million in financing to enable the company to continue operating through an expected auction next month, according to the filings.

Casino giant Caesars Entertainment Corp. has until at least Oct. 5 before it may have to face lawsuits that could force the company into bankruptcy alongside its operating unit, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. U.S. District Judge Robert W. Gettleman yesterday agreed to halt the lawsuits while the operating unit appeals a lower-court ruling that favored bondholders seeking to enforce more than $11 billion in claims. Caesars Entertainment Operating Co. (CEOC) which filed for chapter 11 protection in January 2015, will return to court on Oct. 5 to argue that the judge overseeing its bankruptcy erred when he lifted the lawsuit shield last week. Judge Gettleman said that he would probably decide at the October hearing whether to overturn the bankruptcy judge, but he warned CEOC that it faced an “uphill” fight. The temporary halt to the lawsuits means Caesars won’t immediately face potential losses in a group of cases that have been winding their way through courts in Delaware and New York for more than a year.

Maxus Energy Corp. is defending a $130 million settlement with its corporate parent over responsibility for the cleanup of New Jersey’s contaminated Passaic River, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Maxus was one of dozens of companies tagged with blame for discharging hazardous substances into the river decades ago. The company filed for bankruptcy in June after striking a bargain with owner YPF SA over its corporate parent’s alleged liability for the cleanup. Maxus’s deal with YPF, Argentina’s state-owned oil company, triggered a protest from Occidental Petroleum Corp.’s chemical subsidiary, known as OxyChem, which has been sparring with YPF for years over who should be on the hook for cleaning up the river. Lawyers for Maxus on Monday acknowledged the settlement “has engendered controversy” but maintained it was the best option “when compared to the risks of losing everything at trial and garnering no value for the debtors’ creditors.”

A federal judge's motion filed on Saturday in federal bankruptcy court in Minneapolis may seal the fate of troubled Magnetation Inc., clearing the way for the company to "wind down operations" permanently and laying out terms to terminate the company's lingering bankruptcy, the Duluth (Minn.) News Tribune reported today. The motion by Judge William Fisher sets the stage for the final dissolution of Magnetation, which has been mired in chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings since May 2015. The motion was filed one day after Magnetation announced it might shut down at the end of September. The judge, in approving the "global settlement agreement" to the Magnetation bankruptcy, set a Sept. 27 hearing to end the bankruptcy case and terminate the company, including selling off assets.

Sycamore Partners yesterday confirmed that it submitted a bid for Aeropostale Inc. after a judge issued an opinion rejecting the teen-focused retailer's attempt to block an offer and blame its bankruptcy on the private equity firm, Reuters reported yesterday. Aeropostale owes $151 million to two Sycamore affiliates, Aero Investors LLC and MGF Sourcing Holdings Ltd, and had sought to preempt a credit bid by them. A representative for Sycamore said the firm made an offer for Aeropostale at the retailer's auction yesterday but declined to say if the offer was a credit bid. Aeropostale in court papers last month argued for a court order denying Aero, a lender, and MGF, a supplier, an opportunity to credit bid their claims. Aeropostale charged the affiliates had caused liquidity and inventory troubles in an effort to strain the company's finances and drive it into bankruptcy.

Samson Resources Corp. has signed a revised restructuring pact with a group of creditors that calls for the oil-and-gas company to exit bankruptcy with its top-ranking loan paid off and equity in the hands of second-lien lenders, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Tulsa, Okla.-based Samson is battling junior creditors in bankruptcy court and must either defeat them or win them over in order to make the restructuring proposal a reality. The agreement signed on Friday pledges investors holding 39 percent of Samson’s second-lien loan claims to support a new chapter 11 plan that should be filed within days. When it filed for bankruptcy protection in September 2015, Samson was weighted down with about $4.9 billion worth of debt. It had a deal in hand, but falling energy prices continued to chop into the value of Samson’s assets and the pact fell apart. Read more. (Subscription required.) 

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Caesars Entertainment Corp. won a short reprieve in its litigation with bondholders, once again hitting the pause button in its multibillion-dollar battle, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Judge Matthew Kennelly of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois yesterday granted a motion that pushes back litigation in New York, which was slated to begin Tuesday afternoon, until Sept. 16. At issue is whether Caesars must honor more than $11 billion in guarantees for the debt of its bankrupt operating unit, Caesars Entertainment Operating Co. Last week, Bankruptcy Judge A. Benjamin Goldgar said that he wouldn’t renew the shield that protected Caesars from the lawsuits over whether it must honor the debt guarantees. Litigation was set to begin Tuesday on whether a $7.7 billion payment to bondholders would be made by Caesars. Meanwhile, another suit over $3.7 billion in debt guarantees was scheduled to be argued before a Delaware state court in September. CEOC has filed an appeal that will be heard by Judge Kennelly today.