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Creditors are attempting to force Whistler Energy II, the operator of an offshore oil platform where a worker was recently killed, into involuntary bankruptcy protection, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Five creditors who say they are owed $5 million for services, labor and materials provided to the Houston-based Whistler yesterday filed an involuntary chapter 11 petition against the company, court papers show. The petitioning creditors are Romfor Supply Co., Adriatic Marine LLC, Hydra Ops LLC, Scientific Drilling International Inc. and Patterson Services Inc., court papers show. Earlier this month, an employee of Nabors Industries Ltd. died while working on the Whistler-operated platform in the Gulf of Mexico. Federal regulators say they are currently investigating the incident. Read more. (Subscription required.) 

Has the final shoe dropped for the E&P industry? A session at ABI's 34th Annual Spring Meeting features experts discussing energy industry distress. Register by Friday before rates go up!

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Coal company Foresight Energy LP has received more time to negotiate with debt holders after warning last week that it may need to file for chapter 11 protection, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Foresight announced in financial documents that its bondholders and lenders have agreed not to take any action against the company through March 29 as the groups work to strike a debt-restructuring deal. Such talks have been going on since December, when an unfavorable court decision threw $596.7 million of senior bonds into default — and because of cross-default provisions, its bank and other debt as well. Overall, the company has $1.39 billion in debt as of Dec. 31.

Citing “severe financial distress,” American Hospice Management Holdings has filed for bankruptcy protection so it can sell its money-losing business in the next six weeks, CFO.com reported today. The provider of hospice care in seven states has been seeking a buyer since March 2013. In filing chapter 11 on Sunday, it said that an expedited sale through a bankruptcy proceeding “would best preserve the underlying value of its operations and maximize the value of [its] assets” for the benefit of creditors and shareholders. Hospice Partners of America has made a stalking-horse bid to acquire American Hospice’s operations in Virginia and Texas. Additional bidders will be sought for the operations in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, New Jersey, and Oklahoma, and the sale process must close by April 30, according to the company.

Central Beef Inc., which operated as Florida's largest beef processing plant before recently suspending production, filed for bankruptcy protection after it couldn't find a buyer willing to keep it open, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Officials who put Central Beef's 214-worker plant into chapter 11 protection on Monday blamed several years of sales declines within the slaughterhouse industry, leading revenue to fall 9 percent to $164.3 million in the last two years. Central Beef officials have stopped buying cattle and are grinding remaining meat while they continue to search for buyers for the company's 107,630-square-foot manufacturing operations in Florida.

Republic Airways Holdings Inc. won permission to use the bankruptcy process to return what it says are some of its less attractive airplanes and engines, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The company can turn over six Embraer SA E145 regional jets and three engines to Citibank NA, an agent to an outstanding loan, Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane said yesterday. It also obtained permission to reject the lease for a seventh Embraer plane. Citibank said that the aircraft or engines at stake in the current motion are collateral under a revolving credit facility that now has a balance of $23 million. Judge Lane said that Citibank, which had complained that some of the aircraft had been separated from their engines, will have to bring legal claims later if it can’t work out a resolution.

Emerald Oil Inc. filed for chapter 11 protection yesterday, a month after the oil explorer and producer warned that it could go bankrupt as it remained in default with creditors, Reuters reported. The Denver, Colo.-based company joins a string of energy-related firms to seek court protection from creditors after oil prices plummeted since mid-2014. Emerald listed assets in the range of $10 million to $50 million, and liabilities of between $100 million and $500 million. Read more.

Has the final shoe dropped for the E&P industry? Session at ABI’s 34th Annual Spring Meeting examines with experts discussing oil industry distress. Register by Friday before rates go up!

Following a defeat at the U.S. Supreme Court last summer, Baker Botts proposed a change in the way it charges for bankruptcy work, hoping to cover its financial bases if a chapter 11 client later sues the firm after emerging from bankruptcy. However, Bankruptcy Judge Brendan Shannon in an order on Monday shot down a modified fee structure in Baker Botts’ application to serve as lead debtors’ counsel for New Gulf Resources LLC, an Oklahoma-based energy company that filed for chapter 11 protection on Dec. 17, American Lawyer reported today. The order follows a letter ruling from the judge late last week rejecting the firm’s fee proposal. In its application to represent New Gulf in the bankruptcy, Baker Botts sought to build in a layer of financial protection while also respecting the Supreme Court’s June 15 ruling in Baker Botts v. Asarco, which restricted the firm’s ability to recover bankruptcy litigation costs.

The risk created by last month's death of Justice Antonin Scalia became a reality Tuesday when the Supreme Court deadlocked in a bankruptcy case that had been pending since the first day of the term last October, USA Today reported today. Chief Justice John Roberts read the one-sentence verdict, which could be repeated many times before a replacement for Scalia overcomes a similar deadlock between President Obama and Senate Republicans: "The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided court." The case was one of the high court's least noticed — a bankruptcy dispute between a Missouri bank and a development company that defaulted on its loans. The company was owned by two couples, and the wives filed suit, claiming discrimination for being required to guarantee their spouses' loans. The justices clearly were divided in the case, as evidenced by the length of time it took to issue a decision. By the time Scalia died Feb. 13, the case had been under review for more than four months — an indication of a close decision with one or more dissents. As a result, the Community Bank of Raymore emerges victorious over the two wives, Valerie Hawkins and Janice Patterson, by virtue of the earlier decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.

KaloBios Pharmaceuticals Inc. has lined up $14 million in loans to see it through and out of bankruptcy, financing that could be paid off in the form of bargain-priced stock that would water down the holdings of Martin Shkreli, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Nomis Bay Ltd. has joined Black Horse Capital LP in offering loans designed to fund a deal to get KaloBios back on its feet and soothe a sore spot — the company's association with Shkreli, who attained notoriety for hiking the price of a vital drug by 5,000 percent last year. KaloBios was on the point of being liquidated last November when Shkreli took control of it, driving up the stock price. About a month later, he was pushed out of KaloBios after his arrest on fraud charges unrelated to KaloBios. He remains one of the company's largest shareholders.