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Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office has asked a federal judge to reject an attempt by former Edenville Dam owner Lee Mueller to shield himself from a nearly $120 million judgment through bankruptcy protection, MLive.com reported. On Nov. 16, Nessel’s office motioned for dismissal of Mueller’s chapter 13 case in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Nevada, calling the former dam owner’s filing a “bad faith” effort to avoid paying judgments following the 2020 Michigan flooding disaster. Mueller, of Las Vegas, was ordered to pay $119,825,000 in natural resource damages by a federal judge in Michigan, who issued a default judgment against the former Boyce Hydro owner on Nov. 27 after ruling in February he was personally liable for the death of fish and freshwater mussels during the flood. In the state’s motion in Nevada, assistant attorney general Nathan Gambill called Mueller “one of the worst environmental wrongdoers in Michigan history.” “His bankruptcy filings do not reflect it, but Mr. Mueller’s sole purpose in pursuing bankruptcy relief is to discharge court judgments,” Gambill wrote. A spokesperson for Nessel’s office said Michigan seeks to collect on the Nov. 27 judgment “to the fullest extent permitted by law” and use the money for “restorative purposes.”

The Supreme Court on Monday will consider the Biden administration’s bid to scuttle a $6 billion accord between bankrupt drugmaker Purdue Pharma LP and its billionaire owners, Bloomberg News reported. The deal would protect members of the Sackler family from future opioid lawsuits by way of an oft-used legal mechanism that the high court is now scrutinizing for the first time. If upheld, the settlement would snuff out an inferno of civil lawsuits blaming Purdue’s owners for the company’s aggressive marketing of OxyContin and, in exchange, route billions of dollars to victims, states and communities harmed by the nation’s addiction crisis. The proposal won overwhelming support from opioid crisis victims who voted on it, but there remains a vocal contingent bitterly opposed to letting Purdue’s billionaire owners put the lawsuits behind them. Detractors may get their way because of the challenge from a unit of the Justice Department. At issue is a component of the settlement that forces all opioid victims to give up their claims against the Sacklers even if they’d prefer to take their chances with a jury. Congress authorized similar maneuvers decades ago in bankruptcies related to asbestos lawsuits, and over time, lawyers and bankruptcy courts reasoned that the mandate could be expanded to an array of corporate wrongdoing. Similar deals have ended mass litigation over dangerous products and waves of sex abuse claims against Catholic dioceses, the Boy Scouts of America and USA Gymnastics. They even appear in some mundane acquisitions of bankrupt firms. But federal appeals courts are split over whether the linchpin of these agreements — provisions called nonconsensual third-party releases — are lawful.

Crypto lender Celsius Network may have to seek a new creditor vote on its proposed transformation into a bitcoin-mining business, a U.S. bankruptcy judge said during a court hearing on Thursday, Reuters reported. Celsius said last week that it had reduced its post-bankruptcy business plans to focus only on bitcoin-mining, citing the skepticism of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) about its other planned business lines. Bankruptcy Judge Martin Glenn of New York, who is overseeing Celsius' chapter 11 process, expressed frustration on Thursday about the late pivot, saying that he had been a "broken record" about Celsius's need to reach agreement with the SEC. "This is not the deal that the creditors voted on," Glenn said. The revised deal could face "substantial opposition" from creditors, he said. The SEC did not definitively object to Celsius' bankruptcy plan before it was approved, but Celsius said the agency was unwilling to approve crypto lending and staking activity that the agency has opposed in the past.

FTX Trading Ltd. won bankruptcy court approval to begin selling its stakes in digital trusts managed by crypto firm Grayscale Investments in order to raise money to repay creditors owed billions of dollars, Bloomberg News reported. FTX plans to sell the assets in a way that maximizes the value and avoids disrupting the market for the digital investments, according to court documents. Grayscale sold investments linked to various digital currencies. The buyers didn’t hold the actual currencies, but instead got shares in trusts that Grayscale put together and managed. FTX’s stakes in the trusts were worth about $744 million as of last month, the company said in court papers. Since FTX filed for bankruptcy last year amid fraud allegations, the company’s advisers have been tracking down assets and trying to untangle a complex web of debts owed to various creditors, including customers who put cash and crypto on the trading platform. FTX’s administrators have so far recovered about $7 billion in assets, including $3.4 billion of crypto, according to court documents.

The DuPont Co. and two spin-off firms will pay $110 million to the state of Ohio to settle a lawsuit over environmental threats from toxic chemicals used at a former DuPont facility in neighboring West Virginia, the companies said yesterday, the Associated Press reported. The settlement involving DuPont, the Chemours Co. and Corteva Inc. resolves Ohio’s claims relating to releases of manmade, fluorinated compounds known as PFAS. It also resolves claims relating to the manufacture and sale of PFAS-containing products and claims related to firefighting foam containing PFAS. The compounds, which are associated with an increased risk of certain cancers and other health problems, are often referred to as “forever chemicals” because of their longevity in the environment. They have been used in the production of nonstick coatings such as Teflon, firefighting foam, water- and stain-resistant textiles, food packaging and many other household and personal items. According to the companies, Ohio will allocate 80% of the settlement to the restoration of natural resources related to the operation of the Washington Works facility near Parkersburg, W.Va., on the eastern shore of the Ohio River. The other 20% will be used to address PFAS claims statewide, including the use of firefighting foam. The settlement is subject to court approval.

Hawaiian Electric said it wasn’t sufficiently focused on wildfire risk before August’s deadly blaze on Maui and proposed nearly tripling the money it would now spend on the effort, the Wall Street Journal reported. The utility, in regulatory filings this week, said it had been more concerned with hurricanes than with wildfire risk before the Aug. 8 fire that killed 100 people and leveled the town of Lahaina. The company said it now wants to revise a plan to improve its power grid to focus more on wildfires. In the initial plan, issued last year, Hawaiian Electric proposed investing roughly $190 million to strengthen power lines and equipment to account for a range of risks across the islands. The new plan proposes spending the same amount of money, but shifts resources from other areas such as hazardous-tree removal to upgrades and technologies needed to address wildfire risk. The changes address multiple potential threats, the company said on Tuesday. “Hawaii has experienced a significant increase in damaging hurricane and tropical storm activity over the past 10 years, and our resilience work reflects that continuing threat, along with wildfires, tsunamis, floods and other extreme weather events,” it said. Hawaiian Electric’s acknowledgment that it hadn’t devoted enough resources to preventing wildfires comes as the utility faces continued scrutiny over its actions regarding the Lahaina blaze and whether its equipment sparked the inferno, which it denies.

The Catholic Diocese of Rockville Centre, N.Y., has proposed a revised $200 million settlement of sex abuse claims, but faced immediate pushback on Tuesday from a U.S. bankruptcy judge who demanded more detailed financial information from the bankrupt Long Island diocese, Reuters reported. The diocese said in a Tuesday statement that its revised bankruptcy plan filed Monday was its "best and final" offer. It would pay claimants $200 million in cash, plus the potential for additional recoveries from the diocese's insurers. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Martin Glenn in Manhattan, who is overseeing the diocese's chapter 11, and attorneys for abuse survivors called the proposal a nonstarter at a court hearing later Tuesday morning. The diocese's attempt to resolve about 600 sex-abuse claims has been stalled for months, and Judge Glenn had warned in July that he could dismiss the bankruptcy case if no progress was made. Judge Glenn on Tuesday said he would not approve a bankruptcy plan without detailed financial information from each of the approximately 130 parishes within the diocese. Abuse claimants who vote on the plan must be able to weigh the value of their claim against the resources available to the parish where their abuse occurred, Judge Glenn said.

Digital Currency Group struck a new repayment deal with its bankrupt subsidiary, Genesis Global Holdco LLC, as part of an agreement to end a lawsuit that sought roughly $620 million from DCG, Bloomberg News reported. Genesis lawyer Sean O’Neal said during a hearing yesterday that the deal will provide the bankrupt crypto lender with roughly $200 million in value over the next few weeks and requires DCG to complete outstanding payments in April 2024. If DCG defaults, Genesis can try to collect any unpaid amount, according to court papers. The proposed agreement is meant to resolve a lawsuit Genesis brought in September to recover outstanding loans from its parent conpany. DCG, which has been making payments to Genesis since the lawsuit was filed, still owes its subsidiary $324.5 million as of Nov. 28, according to court documents. Genesis said that the agreement will avoid months of costly litigation with its parent company and guarantees that the bankrupt crypto lender will be partially repaid what it’s owed. O’Neal said that the deal doesn’t resolve other disputes with DCG related to Genesis’s plan for resolving its bankruptcy. Genesis is also facing off in court against its former business partner Gemini Trust Co., and the two also face a suit brought against them by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Meanwhile, New York State has brought legal action against them and DCG.

FTX investors suing the cryptocurrency exchange’s celebrity promoters for allegedly helping to facilitate an $11 billion fraud have some new targets, including Major League Baseball, Formula One racing and Mercedes-Benz Group’s racing team, Bloomberg News reported. Investors’ lawyers sued MLB — the first major sports league to sign a promotional deal with FTX in 2021 — and the other entities in U.S. federal court in Miami on Monday, accusing them of "aiding and abetting and/or actively participating in the FTX Group’s massive, multi-billion-dollar global fraud.” At one point, MLB umpires wore FTX patches on their sleeves. FTX investors who say they lost at least $11 billion in the exchange's meltdown allege that MLB, F1 and the Mercedes F1 racing team helped push the sale of unregulated securities through promotional deals with the cryptocurrency site. Company founder Sam Bankman-Fried was convicted of fraud and conspiracy earlier this month. The additions broaden a class-action suit that already includes more than two dozen celebrities who shilled for FTX in TV commercials and other events. They include big names such as ex-NFL star Tom Brady, current American League Most Valuable Player Shohei Ohtani and NBA sharpshooter Steph Curry.