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The former RadioShack won final court approval of its chapter 11 plan Wednesday after brokering key settlements with lenders that paved the way for the former electronics retailer to secure a judge’s signature on the proposal, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Bankruptcy Judge Brendan Shannon said following a hearing that he would sign off on both the settlements and the chapter 11 plan, which distributes proceeds from the company’s liquidation to its creditors. Burdened with more than $1 billion in debt, RadioShack filed for bankruptcy protection in February and shut down or sold off almost all of its 4,000-store chain. Under its chapter 11 plan, the corporate remains of what was once RadioShack will pay most secured lenders in full but will leave little behind for lower-ranking creditors.

Landlords are up in arms over grocer Haggen's high-speed retreat from a rapid West Coast expansion that landed the company in bankruptcy, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. More than 100 stores will be shut down to pay off lenders that financed the disastrous growth spurt, and landlords say the company is taking inappropriate shortcuts. The decision to close down most of Haggen's stores was announced just weeks into the chapter 11 proceeding, less than a year after a deal that transformed the long-time Pacific Northwest grocery chain into a regional player.

The owner of World Law Debt accused the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau of violating U.S. bankruptcy laws when agency officials took the company's property on Aug. 20 during a legal battle over the debt-settlement firm's services, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. In court papers, World Law Debt owner Derin Scott said that agency officials who took steps to shut down the debt-settlement firm, which filed for bankruptcy in February, did so with "total disregard of the procedures and safeguards of the bankruptcy." Firms under bankruptcy protection are immune from property seizures, unless a federal judge grants an exception. Scott's accusations were raised in a federal lawsuit that the consumer agency filed against the Austin, Texas-based firm on Aug. 17.

Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. is selling 12 of its stores to Wakefern Food Corp. for $40 million, subject to higher bids at an auction, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. In a Thursday filing with U.S. Bankruptcy Court in White Plains, N.Y., A&P asked for the auction in accordance with “discrete” sales procedures already authorized by a judge for the stores that weren’t part of the initial group to be sold when it entered bankruptcy. If no objection is filed, no hearing will be held. If competing bids emerge, A&P will hold an Oct. 8 auction for the stores. If another bidder wins, that party must pay Wakefern a $1.2 million breakup fee.

A federal judge ordered an investigation into a $6.8 million transaction that would reshuffle the ownership of bankrupt New Hampshire manufacturer of Coolcore fabric used in sportswear, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. In a court order, Judge Bruce A. Harwood gave a New Hampshire lawyer seven days to file a report on whether Coolcore officials have reached out to potential buyers who could challenge a purchase offer from the company's lender and majority owner, Schleicher & Stebbins Hotels LLC. That entity owns 55 percent of the Coolcore's shares and has proposed to buy the company by forgiving roughly $6.8 million in debt, according to documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manchester, N.H. In his court order, Judge Harwood told Michael S. Askenaizer to investigate whether Schleicher & Stebbins Hotels should be able to use the full amount of debt to purchase the company and whether the buyer got any other advantage in negotiating the deal.

A New York judge urged warring creditors of Arch Coal to continue out-of-court negotiations over a refinancing plan for the second-largest U.S. coal miner, Reuters reported on Friday.  New York-based GSO Special Situations Master Fund LP, which holds some of Arch Coal's unsecured notes, last week sued a group of investors that hold the company's loans, alleging that they are trying to block a crucial debt swap proposed by the miner. In July, Arch Coal announced an offer to swap existing notes for longer-term securities as part of a restructuring plan that, if successful, could save the company from bankruptcy. Like other highly leveraged miners, Arch Coal is suffering from falling coal demand, stricter regulation and sinking coal prices, triggering concerns of a chapter 11 filing in the absence of a coal recovery and more-manageable debt costs. The deadline for the exchange, which has been extended several times, is now Oct. 26.

The union representing Haggen’s workers is getting a seat at the table on the struggling grocery chain’s bankruptcy reorganization, although it’s unclear how much influence it will be able to exert in the process, the Seattle Times reported today. Documents filed with a bankruptcy court in Delaware showed that the U.S. Trustee’s office overseeing the case picked United Food and Commercial Workers International as one of the seven members of the unsecured creditors committee. The members represent the dozens of parties to whom Haggen owes money, but whose claims are not backed by collateral assets. The other members of the committee are distributor Unified Grocers, PepsiCo, Starbucks, Santa Monica Seafood, Valassis Communications and Spirit SPE HG, a retail landlord.

Forest Park Medical Center in Texas filed for chapter 11 protection on Tuesday, the Dallas Morning News reported today. According to court documents, the hospital was based on an out-of-network model that relied on higher reimbursement rates for its operations. But that model has not generated enough revenue to sustain operations, documents say. So the center shifted and began contracting with insurance providers for in-network procedures, but those reduced rates haven’t been enough to increase the medical center’s overall revenues, documents state. Without more patients, the hospital owes more than $14 million to creditors and cannot generate enough revenue to operate and service its debt, according to the documents. Read more.

For more on medical center bankruptcies, be sure to pick up a copy of ABI’s Health Care Insolvency Manual, Third Edition. 

Donald Trump's Trump Organization is considering making a play for the bankrupt golf and country club in Puerto Rico that bears his name, according to the club's bankruptcy lawyer, Dow Jones Newswires reported yesterday. Lawyer Charles Cuprill, who is representing the owner of the Trump International Golf Club in Puerto Rico, told a bankruptcy judge on Tuesday that the Republican presidential candidate's company has signed a confidentiality agreement and has requested information about the assets to be sold in order to conduct due diligence. A $2 million offer from OHorizons Global LLC is the lead bid for the club, which is home to two 18-hole championship golf courses designed by golfer Tom Kite that have hosted the Puerto Rico Open golf tournament. If rival bids are received by the Nov. 16 deadline, an auction will be held on Nov. 23.

The high bid in a bankruptcy auction yesterday for Renault Winery Resort and Golf came from the property’s mortgagee, OceanFirst Bank, which made a credit bid on the still-open resort, the Press of Atlantic City (N.J.) reported today. The Toms River, N.J.-based bank obtained a $7.7 million mortgage foreclosure judgment against Renault last summer. The property was on the verge of going to a sheriff’s sale before the 150-year-old vineyard filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November. A hearing for a federal judge to approve a sale is scheduled for Thursday in Camden, N.J. Read more. 

For further analysis of issues surrounding credit bidding, be sure to pick up a copy of ABI’s Credit Bidding in Bankruptcy Sales: A Guide for Lenders, Creditors, and Distressed-Debt Investors.