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Deutsche Bank AG squared off against the U.S. parent company of Lehman Brothers in a London court this week, hoping to squeeze more money from obscure notes issued by the long-dead bank’s U.K. arm, Bloomberg News reported. The German lender argued that it should be paid money recovered from the U.K. unit ahead of the company’s U.S. parent. Deutsche Bank is leading the case as a holder of a certain type of junior security issued from Lehman’s European unit. It’s the second trial over the ranking of those subordinated notes, after first handing Deutsche Bank and other holders a big win at the U.K. Court of Appeal. While some investors discarded the Enhanced Capital Advantaged Preferred Securities (ECAPS) for nothing in the years following the U.S. lender’s collapse, so much has been generated by the insolvency of Lehman’s U.K. arm that there is now a fight over the interest on the ECAPS claim. “Maybe interest was a golden possibility that no one had thought of at the time,” Judge Robert Hildyard said while questioning the barrister representing Deutsche Bank.

Scandinavia’s biggest airline SAS AB has received a final round of bids from potential suitors looking to invest in the carrier as part of a rescue plan to shore up its ailing finances, Reuters reported. The Stockholm-based company, which is going through a chapter 11 reorganization in the U.S., needs to raise at least 9.5 billion Swedish kronor ($856 million) in new equity and convert or cut its debt pile of about 20 billion kronor. Chief Executive Officer Anko van der Werff has previously said the amount of equity is not set and could go higher. Shares in SAS fell as much as 13% in Stockholm on Tuesday, giving the company a market value of just $183 million. The airline warned in April that there would be no value in its existing shares at the end of the restructuring. The governments of Denmark and Sweden each own a 21.8% stake in SAS, but only Denmark has said it’s open to adding to its holding. Sweden indicated it will accept a conversion of debt it is owed into equity, but that it will not participate in a new capital raise. Norway’s government said it won’t contribute any new equity.

Ebix Inc. Chief Executive Officer Robin Raina received a $1.8 million bonus last week, even as a Sept. 30 deadline looms for the company to repay a loan of more than $600 million to a syndicate of US banks without having the cash on hand, Bloomberg News reported. Ebix, based in Johns Creek, Ga., disclosed the bonus in a regulatory filing Monday. It said that $1.2 million of the bonus was paid on Sept. 19, the day the board awarded it to Raina. The remainder will be paid in October, according to the filing. As of June 30, Ebix reported having $62.2 million of cash on its balance sheet and $14.4 million in short-term investments. It also said it had $8.3 million in restricted cash. Over the past two years, Ebix has amended its loan agreement with a consortium of US banks, led by Regions Financial Corp., multiple times to buy more time to pay off the loan. The company has been trying to spin off its India-based unit, EbixCash, in an initial public offering which was projected to be one of the largest in that country. The IPO filing is for 6,000 crore rupees, or about $700 million, of which some $300 million is earmarked for repayment of the debt. But the IPO has been delayed several times, in part because of questions from regulators. Hindenburg Research, which published a critical report about the finances of the Adani Group of companies earlier this year, criticized Ebix last year, describing the EbixCash unit, a money-transfer business, as a “house of cards.”

Noble House Home Furnishings joined the ranks of furniture suppliers to file for bankruptcy earlier this month, with the company blaming cost inflation and past supply chain disruptions, among other challenges, Retail Dive reported. When the company filed for chapter 11, it owed suppliers and warehousers in its supply chain some $10 million from the period leading up to its bankruptcy, according to a court filing. Trade debts from importers and vendors in China and Vietnam make up a majority of the largest claims by the company’s unsecured creditors. Since filing, Noble House asked for and received court permission to make emergency payments to keep its suppliers in good stead and prevent warehousers from seizing inventory. Without the ability to pay claims to vendors as they arise, Noble House would face “significant disruption to [the company’s] operations at this critical time,” it said in the filing. Founded in 1992, the family-owned company drop-ships merchandise for some of the largest retailers in the U.S., including Amazon, Walmart, Costco, Wayfair, Overstock, Target and Home Depot, the company’s current CFO, Gayla Bella, said in court papers. Among its wholesale customers are off-price giants Ross Stores and TJX Cos.

Burford Capital said it would be seeking court permission to begin attaching Argentine assets within weeks to satisfy a $16 billion judgment, saying it was clear that the South American nation had “no intention” of paying, Bloomberg News reported. In a letter Friday to U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska in New York, London-based Burford said it intended to ask her to set Oct. 16 as the date it can begin efforts to execute the judgment and attach assets. Preska earlier this month ordered Argentina to pay the award over its 2012 expropriation of foreign investment in oil company YPF SA. Burford, a litigation funder that acquired the claims of YPF shareholders in 2015, stands to receive the largest share of the award, or around $6.2 billion. It said on Friday that it needed to begin collection efforts right away because Argentina was not going to cooperate. The firm cited a radio interview in which an Argentine official said the country “does not have to pay” the “completely absurd” judgment. “Simply put, Argentina has no intention of paying the judgment, and it would be spurious for Argentina to suggest otherwise,” Randy Mastro, a lawyer for Burford, said in the letter, arguing that Argentina should not be given any additional time.

The steepening downturn in China’s real-estate markets has led China Evergrande to scrap a $35 billion debt-restructuring plan designed to ensure the property developer’s survival, a sign that China’s ongoing housing crisis could still get worse, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. China Evergrande, among the largest property developers in China, popped the country’s real-estate bubble in 2021 when it spiraled into insolvency and set off a chain of developer defaults. Evergrande’s parent company was on the verge of a restructuring deal with its creditors when the Chinese housing industry sputtered yet again in recent months. Now, Evergrande’s plan to stay alive is falling apart. In a securities filing on Friday, Evergrande said it needed to scrap its restructuring plan because of worse-than-expected property sales and would look for another path forward that “reflects the company’s objective situation.” Evergrande also said in the filing that it has started initial talks on renegotiating the plan with its creditors, including Chinese banks and international bondholder groups. Without a new deal, bondholders who lent around $15 billion to Evergrande could pursue a liquidation of the company and put more pressure on an already-anemic real-estate market in China. Read more.