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Caesars Entertainment Operating Co.'s (CEOC) bid to move forward with its restructuring is premature and unlikely as long as an investigation into major asset transfers remains unresolved, according to the casino company's creditors and the federal government, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. In court papers filed on Tuesday, several creditor groups and a Justice Department bankruptcy watchdog urged a judge to deny CEOC's request for a crucial court hearing on its disclosure statement — the document outlining its plan to slash some $10 billion of its $18 billion debt load — to be held by late January. "There is no plausible scenario in which these chapter 11 cases will be ready for a disclosure statement hearing in late January," wrote lawyers for unsecured creditors, who haven't backed CEOC's current restructuring plan. The objections cite an ongoing probe by a court-appointed examiner into various transfers of assets from Caesars to publicly traded parent Caesars Entertainment Corp., which isn't in bankruptcy.

Cruise industry newcomer Haimark Line has filed for bankruptcy just months after beginning operations, USA Today reported today. "Any disruptions in service will be announced if and when they occur during this period of reorganization," the line said in the statement. Initially offering voyages along the Eastern USA and into the Great Lakes, Haimark had a troubled start this summer. It's only ship, the 210-passenger Saint Laurent, crashed into a lock while navigating the St. Lawrence Seaway just weeks after its May 30 debut. In its statement, Haimark blamed the accident for the bankruptcy filing, citing insurance issues that remain unresolved. The line charters the Saint Laurent from Clipper Cruises, which owns the vessel.

The Baha Mar resort’s Chinese lender has decided to foreclose on the $3.5 billion resort in the Bahamas and has appointed a receiver to bring the delayed project to completion, roughly six weeks after it was thrown out of bankruptcy protection in the U.S., the Wall Street Journal reported today. The move by the Export-Import Bank of China, which received Bahamian court approval to name Deloitte to the receiver role, comes a few weeks after some 2,000 employees in the Bahamas lost their jobs at the partially completed resort at the request of court-appointed liquidators. The employees had been kept on the payroll at the partially completed resort with the help of the Bahamian government.

Caesars Entertainment Operating Co. secured a bankruptcy judge’s permission to sell its Harrah’s Tunica Hotel & Casino in Mississippi as part of its chapter 11 restructuring, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Bankruptcy Judge A. Benjamin Goldgar yesterday signed off on the shuttered casino’s sale, for $3 million, to TJM Properties. Caesars canceled last week’s auction for the property after no rival bidders stepped forward to challenge TJM Properties’ offer. The buyer, which owns hotels and senior-living properties, acquired another closed casino, the Atlantic Club Hotel & Casino in Atlantic City, N.J., for $13.5 million last year.

Junior creditors of Caesars Entertainment launched a fresh attack against a top U.S. restructuring attorney, alleging that he misled a judge and asking that the law firm be disqualified from parts of the casino group's bankruptcy case, Reuters reported yesterday. Jones Day, the junior bondholders' law firm, asked the court to reconsider a May order that allowed the bankrupt unit of Caesars Entertainment Corp to hire Kirkland, led by James Sprayregen. The dispute between two of the best-known law firms in corporate restructuring adds another layer of feuding to Caesars' $18 billion bankruptcy, which involves the biggest U.S. private equity and hedge fund firms. In a new court filing on Friday, Jones Day revealed evidence from a board meeting of the operating unit that it says shows testimony by Sprayregen at a trial over Kirkland's hiring by Caesars was incomplete and misleading. Kirkland & Ellis denied the allegation and said that it was without merit. Jones Day initially filed a redacted version of the motion last week, but Bankruptcy Judge Benjamin Goldgar in Chicago rejected that for procedural reasons.