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A lawsuit by five Hertz Global Holdings Inc. customers has accused the rental giant of faulty inventory tracking that caused the drivers to face wrongful arrest for car theft, the Wall Street Journal reported. The lawsuit, filed in the Delaware Superior Court on Tuesday, said the five named customers were stopped in the past year by police and held at gunpoint for renting and driving vehicles that Hertz incorrectly reported as stolen. Such instances have been a continuing issue for Hertz, according to the plaintiffs’ lawyer, with at least 300 since 2015. The majority of legal claims related to false arrests were funneled into bankruptcy proceedings after the company entered chapter 11 proceedings in May 2020. The latest suit appears to be the first stemming from police stops that occurred since the company emerged from bankruptcy. In court and securities filings this year, Hertz has said the false-arrests allegations are an old problem and contained to the company that collapsed two years ago under the weight of mounting debt, stiff competition and the pandemic’s early impact on travel. Most of the cases at issue involve vehicles that weren’t returned to Hertz on time, though some claimants have been offered settlements, Hertz said in its latest quarterly report. The lawsuit filed yesterday alleged that the problems still exist. In several incidents that have occurred since Hertz emerged from bankruptcy in June 2021, police allegedly stopped and drew weapons on customers for driving vehicles they had rented from Hertz.

Cineworld Group Plc explored options including a secondary U.S. listing, selling non-U.S. assets, merging with a rival and an SPAC deal, but ultimately had no choice but to file for bankruptcy with less than $4 million cash on hand, according to Deputy Chief Executive Officer Israel Greidinger, Bloomberg News reported. The world’s second-largest cinema chain filed for chapter 11 protection in Texas on Wednesday to pay off heavy debts, finance future operations and “rationalize its theater portfolio,” Greidinger said in the court documents. Enforced COVID-19 theater shutdowns froze the group’s income stream and its ability to pay for costs, including billions of dollars in debts incurred when it bought U.S. company Regal in 2018. Cineworld’s biggest rival, AMC Entertainment Holdings, Inc., had a very different pandemic experience, benefiting from a more-than-2,500% surge in its share price in the first half of 2021, fueled by retail investors on social media platforms like Reddit piling into so-called ‘meme’ stocks. The U.S. theater chain replenished its coffers by issuing equity at heightened prices, and although AMC has now lost a lot of the gains from that rally, the business remains more valuable than before the pandemic struck. London-based Cineworld publicly floated the idea of a secondary U.S. listing in August 2021, but never went ahead with the possible plan.

The British movie theater chain Cineworld, weighed down by a mammoth debt pile, filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S. yesterday, having failed to rebound from the pressure inflicted by the pandemic, the New York Times reported. Cineworld, the world’s second-largest theater chain after AMC Theaters, will seek to significantly reduce its debt through reorganization, the company said in the filing. The company, which is based in London and operates Regal Cinemas in the United States, reported $8.9 billion in debt at the end of 2021, including $4 billion in lease liabilities. Some of the debt was taken on in the pandemic as the company sought to outlast lockdowns that had sapped its revenue. Cineworld said yesterday in its filling that it had secured $1.94 billion in debtor-in-possession financing that would allow it to keep up its operations while it restructures its obligations. “The pandemic was an incredibly difficult time for our business, with the enforced closure of cinemas and huge disruption to film schedules that has led us to this point,” Mooky Greidinger, the company’s chief executive, said in the filing. Shares of Cineworld, which are traded on the London Stock Exchange, have lost close to 86 percent of their value since the beginning of the year and the company reported a loss of $565.8 million in its most recent earnings report. Before the pandemic, Cineworld had entered an agreement to acquire the Canadian company Cineplex, but it backed out of the deal in June 2020 after the pandemic hit. Cineplex sued for breach of contract, winning a fine of close to $1 billion from a Canadian judge, which Cineworld has yet to pay.

Three Portland hotels are in foreclosure proceedings and could go up for auction, according to documents, KOIN.com reported. The hotels, which are all downtown, are the Hilton’s flagship, which is near 6th and Broadway, along with The Duniway on SW Taylor and The Dossier on SW Alder. The Hilton and Duniway hotels were owned by the same company, THI VI Portland LLC, while The Dossier was owned by Portland Hotel LLC, according to the documents. The documents indicate the Hilton and Duniway’s public auction will be on Sept. 13, while the public auction for The Dossier will be on Nov. 29. It comes as more hotels raise the alarm over a two-fold issue in downtown Portland in a Travel Portland report, which cited a lack of office workers and corporate clients needing rooms and conference spaces along with the rise in vandalism, crime and homeless camps downtown throughout the pandemic.

U.S. officials screened 8.76 million air travelers over the four-day Labor Day weekend, marking the first time holiday weekend screening volume has exceeded 2019 pre-pandemic levels, Reuters reported. The U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) said Tuesday the four-day period topped the 8.24 million passengers screened over the Labor Day weekend in 2019, which traditionally marks the end of the busy U.S. summer travel season. Overall, U.S. summer travel did not meet early expectations as U.S. airlines trimmed summer capacity by 16% and adjusted staffing models to account for the time it takes to hire and train new employees. On Thursday, the Transportation Department (USDOT) said the largest U.S. airlines had made "significant changes" to customer service plans with nearly all agreeing to offer passengers meals and overnight stays for delays within their control after a rough summer for travel, during which hundreds of thousands of flights were canceled or delayed.

Cineworld Group Plc equity holders are set to be left with nothing, a short seller warned after the cinema operator said this week that it was considering filing for U.S. bankruptcy, Bloomberg News reported. Argonaut Capital Partners LLP’s Barry Norris told Bloomberg Television that Cineworld’s pursuit of acquisitions that were funded by debt had left it with a “completely unsustainable” capital structure. A spokesman for Cineworld declined to comment on Argonaut’s position or interview but requested that Bloomberg highlight the firm’s Aug. 22 statement, in which it said it would “maintain its operations in the ordinary course until and following any filing and ultimately to continue its business over the longer term with no significant impact upon its employees.” The cinema chain racked up large debts from acquisitions, and has suffered from a weak box-office recovery following COVID-19 lockdowns that kept customers away from theaters. Following its 2018 acquisition of US chain Regal, Cineworld carries $4.84 billion in net debt, according to its latest annual report. It also faces nearly $1 billion in damages to Canada’s Cineplex Inc. over an aborted takeover bid.

Cineworld Group Plc, the owner of Regal Cinemas, is preparing to file for bankruptcy within weeks after struggling to rebuild attendance from pandemic lows, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The British cinema company has engaged lawyers from Kirkland & Ellis LLP and consultants from AlixPartners to advise on the bankruptcy process, these people said. Cineworld is expected to file a chapter 11 petition in the U.S. and is considering filing an insolvency proceeding in the U.K., they said. Cineworld said on Wednesday that despite a gradual recovery in attendance since reopening theaters last year, recent admissions have lagged below expectations due to a limited film slate. The company is evaluating strategic options to generate liquidity and potentially restructure its balance sheet through a comprehensive deleveraging transaction, it said. Any such deleveraging likely will be highly dilutive to shareholders, Cineworld said. The company is negotiating with its lenders to fund the costs of the bankruptcy process, according to a person familiar. Cineworld and Kirkland didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. AlixPartners declined to comment. The London-based chain narrowly escaped bankruptcy in 2020 after landing a lifeline from creditors while its nearly 800 theaters were shut due to COVID-19 restrictions.