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Johnson & Johnson and a committee of cancer victims have agreed to speed up a court appeal of their fight regarding whether the health-care giant can use bankruptcy to end as many as 100,000 talc-related claims, Bloomberg News reported. The move could cut months off the appeals process. The first time the two sides fought about the issue, it took about a year and resulted in the bankruptcy case being dismissed. Now, J&J intends to appeal a decision by US Bankruptcy Judge Michael Kaplan to throw out the insolvency case of LTL Management, the unit the company created in order to try to resolve tens of thousands of cancer lawsuits. With Judge Kaplan gearing up to likely sign a final order dismissing the bankruptcy case next week — for the second time — both J&J and the committee of cancer victims want the federal appeals court to take up the matter. The cancer lawsuits have been on hold since J&J put LTL into bankruptcy for the first time in 2021. After that case was dismissed, J&J struck a deal with tens of thousands of claimants and put LTL back into bankruptcy, only to have that case struck down as well.

Wireless venture Ligado Networks is in talks with its major creditors about a debt restructuring that would ease the way for a commercial deal to expand its satellite offerings, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Ligado is exploring ways to restructure its stack of debt and equity securities ahead of a roughly $4 billion bond maturity in November, these people said. While Ligado is expected to win broad support for a restructuring, it is considering a bankruptcy filing to implement settlement terms if creditors don’t agree unanimously. The company set the restructuring in motion aiming to allow for commercial deals involving its satellite service with a leaner balance sheet free of imminent debt obligations. Such deals include a possible joint venture to pool spectrum licenses with telecom companies including Viasat, which Ligado recently owed at least $350 million under a 2007 agreement signed with Inmarsat, a satellite operator acquired by Viasat earlier this year. Some of Ligado’s major creditors have been developing the broad strokes of a restructuring that would maintain the existing order of payment priority among lenders and shareholders of the company, while trimming some debt by turning it into preferred equity.

The collapse of trucking giant Yellow Corp. casts doubt on whether the U.S. government will be able to fully recoup a controversial $700 million loan for an enterprise that was already in financial trouble before the Treasury threw it a COVID lifeline, Bloomberg News reported. The Nashville-based company may be forced to file for bankruptcy soon, after having told workers on Monday that it was shutting down. The decision punctuates the company’s struggle to refinance more than $1 billion of debt maturing in 2024 — almost half of which is held by the government. Now, it’s unclear how much the Treasury Department, which issued the loan in 2020 under the Trump administration, can expect to get back. The government and its agent for the loan, Bank of New York Mellon, may have to fight other creditors in court for whatever assets Yellow has left. Among the other creditors: private equity titan Apollo Global Management Inc., which in 2019 was the lead lender on a $600 million term loan for the company, known at the time as YRC Worldwide Inc.

Heirs of the late Art Van Elslander would tap business insurance policy proceeds and pay nothing out of pocket as part of a proposed $8 million settlement agreement with the trustee for the Art Van Furniture bankruptcy case, the Detroit Free Press reported. The tentative settlement, laid out last week by the trustee in federal bankruptcy court in Delaware, would end the trustee's lawsuit against the Art Van heirs and release them from future claims — if the judge approves the agreement. The settlement would also cover former Art Van CEO Kim Yost and the Boston-based private-equity firm Thomas H. Lee Partners. The Art Van family in March 2017 sold their furniture retailer to the private-equity firm in a complex $621 million deal. Nearly all of the settlement money is to come from the National Union Fire Insurance Company of Pittsburgh. National Union provided insurance coverage, including for breach of fiduciary duty claims, to former Art Van President Gary Van Elslander, Yost and various Thomas H. Lee Partners officials who sat on Art Van's board of directors, according to settlement documents.

Needing shareholder support for its planned merger with Coherus BioSciences, biotech Surface Oncology has warned that outlays triggered by the deal have shrunk its cash runway and will leave Surface needing funding fast if the deal collapses, FierceBiotech.com reported. Coherus struck a stock-for-stock deal to buy Surface for up to $65 million in June. The boards of both the biotechs signed off on the merger but Surface needs to secure shareholder support at a meeting scheduled for next month. Until all the pieces are in place, the deal could still collapse — and that would cause problems for Surface, which laid off half of its staff in conjunction with the merger. The biotech shared details of actions triggered by the merger agreement, such as a lease termination and loan repayment, when it disclosed the Coherus deal in June. Surface used its second-quarter results to outline the implications of the actions for its prospects if the merger falls apart. In the event shareholders reject the merger, Surface “anticipates its remaining cash and cash equivalents will provide runway through 2023.” The biotech had previously forecast its cash would last into the third quarter of 2024 before it handed $10 million to its landlord to terminate the lease on its headquarters and paid $28.3 million to end a loan agreement.

A bankrupt Holiday Inn in downtown Manhattan can’t use chapter 11 to maintain its low-rate mortgage without paying penalty interest linked to its default, a judge ruled in a setback for borrowers seeking to hold on to more affordable loans as interest rates rise, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Judge Philip Bentley of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan said in this week’s ruling that Golden Seahorse, owner of the 50-story hotel, should pay the default interest and fees charged by its lenders, totaling about $20 million, if it wants to keep its cheaper mortgage as it leaves chapter 11. The judge, however, said that Golden Seahorse can return to his court to argue that its defaults should be excused because under New York state law, the COVID-19 pandemic made it impossible to keep up with its payments. A lawyer for Golden Seahorse, Scott Markowitz, said the company would do so. Golden Seahorse arranged a 10-year, $137 million loan in 2018 and had been current until May 2020, when it failed to make a payment after the hotel closed because of the pandemic. Its lenders began charging default interest and Golden Seahorse filed for bankruptcy in November to avoid a seizure.

Bankrupt crypto lender Genesis Global Holdco LLC has extended its mediation with creditors for the last time, a company lawyer said during a hearing yesterday, Bloomberg News reported. “If we do not make substantial progress with respect to a deal in principle in the next two weeks, we do not believe that we will be seeking to extend the mediation further,” company lawyer Sean O’Neal told US Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane. As a result, the talks will have to wrap up by Aug. 16. Genesis has been in mediation with key stakeholders — including parent company Digital Currency Group and Gemini Trust Co. — since May. They’re trying to save a proposed bankruptcy exit plan backed by DCG that was rejected by its official committee of unsecured creditors. If the parties don’t come to a deal by Aug. 16, the crypto lender will move forward with its existing bankruptcy plan, subject to certain amendments, the lawyer said. The mediation is one of the final hurdles preventing Genesis from wrapping up its time in bankruptcy.

BlockFi’s reorganization is gradually progressing, with the company revealing that the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey has conditionally approved its disclosure statement, CoinTelegraph.com reported. BlockFi and the unsecured creditors' committee jointly issued a statement on Aug. 2, 2023, urging all eligible parties to vote to accept the plan by the Sept. 11 voting deadline. The successful approval of the plan will effectively resolve the chapter 11 cases and facilitate the return of client funds. Once the bankruptcy plan receives approval, the lender said that it intends to concentrate on recovering funds from several defunct firms, including Alameda Research, FTX, Three Arrows Capital, Emergent, Marex and Core Scientific. The primary aim is to optimize client recoveries while countering claims by third parties that could significantly dilute client assets. According to the announcement, the plan offers clients the opportunity for releases if they don’t opt out of a voluntary third-party release, which exempts them from all claims and causes of action that BlockFi may have against them. This release applies to most clients, except those who withdrew $250,000 or more from BlockFi Interest Accounts (BIA) or BlockFi Private Client (BPC) Accounts on or after Nov. 2, 2022.

A number of prescription opioid manufacturers, including OxyContin developer Purdue Pharma and generics maker Mallinckrodt, have agreed to pay billions to settle lawsuits accusing the companies of fueling a drug abuse crisis in the U.S. The money they agreed to pay was meant to help communities fight opioid addiction and cover rehabilitation costs for individuals, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Three of those settlements are at risk of falling apart or being substantially reworked, putting more than $8 billion of settlement money intended for addiction victims and governments in jeopardy. The drug manufacturers in particular faced charges of deceptive marketing practices, as companies like Purdue told the public that less than 1% of patients became addicted to their opioid pills, although internal company correspondence revealed that they knew that the risk of addiction was in fact much higher. Purdue Pharma’s settlement is also at risk. The drugmaker and tens of thousands of addiction victims, state governments and municipalities last year reached a global settlement that includes a $6 billion contribution that Purdue’s owners, the Sackler family, agreed to pay. In July, however, the federal government filed an appeal to the Supreme Court to review the settlement, suggesting that the inclusion of legal waivers for the family members may not conform with U.S. law. If the justices agree to hear the case, it could take until the end of next year for a decision to be made on whether the releases are legally permissible, and even longer for funds to be distributed. If the Supreme Court decides that the Sacklers can’t get releases under their plan, it is possible the whole settlement will have to be reworked and renegotiated.