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Mexican finance officials said they wouldn’t make a better offer to bondholders who invested in Mexico City’s stalled airport construction project and have refused the government’s request to alter repayment terms, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Mexico’s finance ministry said Sunday that it had put forth “a balanced and market-friendly transaction” to holders of $6 billion in debt issued for a major airport project that the country’s new administration wants to cancel. The government warned that if creditors didn’t accept those terms it would “reconsider what alternatives are available.” In response, a creditor committee said yesterday that it “strongly believes” that Mexico should improve its offer, which would buy back $1.8 billion in bonds while changing the terms of the rest.

Malaysian authorities on Monday filed criminal charges against Goldman Sachs Group Inc. units and a former partner of the bank in connection with the 1MDB financial scandal, the country’s attorney general said, the Wall Street Journal reported. Goldman Sachs International and two Asian subsidiaries of the Wall Street bank were charged under securities laws for the omission of material information and publishing of untrue statements in offering documents in 2012 and 2013 for the sale of international bonds by state investment fund 1Malaysia Development Bhd., or 1MDB. “We believe these charges are misdirected, will vigorously defend them and look forward to the opportunity to present our case. The firm continues to cooperate with all authorities investigating these matters,” Goldman said. Malaysia’s attorney general also filed charges against Tim Leissner, a former Goldman partner, under securities laws. Leissner pleaded guilty in criminal charges made public by the U.S. Justice Department in November to misappropriating 1MDB money and bribing officials in Malaysia and Abu Dhabi. His sentencing is expected early next year.

China’s effort to cut the burden of insolvent companies weighing on its slowing economy has kicked into higher gear, with a slew of bankruptcy filings that’s set to enrich the case history of debt resolutions for bond investors, Bloomberg News reported. Local courts have accepted or plan to accept at least five bankruptcy applications from firms that defaulted on publicly issued bonds since early November. That’s roughly on par with the number seen over the previous four years. The new pace may continue: China’s top planning body called on Dec. 4 for local officials to clean up the debt of firms with excess production capacity or insolvent balance sheets by 2020. The bad news is that some bondholders may find they’re going to get less back from defaulted issuers than they anticipated. The good news: there’s likely to be swifter resolution once court procedures take over from ad-hoc work-out negotiations. And the process will give both creditors and debtors the chance to gain experience in restructuring obligations, little more than four years after China began embracing the concept of defaults in the world’s third-largest bond market.

Toys “R” Us Inc. and some foreign subsidiaries got approval Thursday for their joint chapter 11 bankruptcy plan, which includes the $760 million sale of the Asian business, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The Asian business of Toys “R” Us has been considered healthy, and a U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Richmond, Va., yesterday approved the sale of that operation to a new ownership group that includes existing bondholders that have said that they plan to operate the business. Of that $760 million offer, about half is a credit bid, meaning that the lenders will trade their debt for ownership of the business.

Saudi Arabian conglomerate Ahmad Hamad Algosaibi and Brothers (AHAB) has begun canvassing creditor support for its bid to become the first company to achieve a settlement under the kingdom’s new bankruptcy law, Reuters reported. Creditors will vote in the first quarter of 2019 on whether they agree to AHAB’s plan to reach a protective settlement under the law, said Simon Charlton, AHAB’s chief restructuring officer. Similar to chapter 11 proceedings in the U.S., the mechanism offers a cram-down provision, stopping minority dissenting creditors from blocking a settlement agreed by the majority. Any deal would provide a breakthrough to the kingdom’s biggest debt row that has dragged on since AHAB and another firm, Saad Group, defaulted on about $22 billion of debt in 2009.

Troubled low-cost African carrier Fastjet Plc said yesterday that it had enough cash to operate until Dec. 21 and that it had met the conditions for an open offer and equity refinancing to raise funds, Reuters reported. The company in September announced a fundraising and equity refinancing aimed at increasing its equity base by at least $40 million, which will give the airline enough working capital until the end of 2019. The airline said it had cash balance of $7 million as of Wednesday, of which $6.5 million was restricted cash held inside Zimbabwe.

United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz said yesterday that he was “not concerned” the bankruptcy filing of Avianca Brasil would hurt the No. 3 U.S. carrier’s joint venture with related airline Colombia’s Avianca Holdings, Reuters reported. Avianca Brasil, which filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday after being sued for repossession of its jets, is owned by holding company Synergy Group, which also controls the better-known Avianca Holdings. As part of a planned joint venture to give it a deeper foothold in Latin America, United extended a $456 million loan to Synergy last month, backed by Avianca common stock that can be executed in the event of a default. Munoz said the loan was “very exacting” in terms of how it had been structured and that Avianca Colombia had no connection to its Brazilian counterpart other than a common shareholder.

Venezuela is facing the possible unraveling of a pair of billion-dollar settlements aimed at protecting the cash-strapped country’s U.S.-based Citgo Petroleum Corp. from seizure by creditors, Reuters reported. A lawyer for Canadian mining company Crystallex International Corp. said yesterday that Venezuela had breached the $1.4 billion November agreement that resolved a long-running fight over an expropriated gold mine. Separately, Venezuela’s $1.3 billion settlement in October with Rusoro Mining of Vancouver, also over expropriated mining assets, has been upended by U.S. sanctions on Caracas, a source told Reuters. Both companies had their sights on getting a U.S. court order to auction the parent company of Citgo, which is indirectly owned by Venezuela through its state oil company, PDVSA. While Venezuela has been crippled by an economic crisis and has defaulted on tens of billions of dollars of debt, it has struck deals to protect Citgo’s refineries, a key destination for Venezuela’s crude.