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The Roman Catholic Diocese of Rockville Centre has sold its headquarters for $5.2 million — money church officials say will be used to pay creditors, the Associated Press reported. Newsday reports the diocese became the largest in the country last year to declare bankruptcy amid more than 200 lawsuits it faced under New York State’s Child Victims Act. The law opened a so-called lookback window — since extended until August — that allows childhoods victims of sexual abuse to file civil claims beyond statute of limitations restrictions. The diocese, home to 1.4 million Catholics in the Long Island region, sold the five-story pastoral center and an adjacent parking lot to Synergy Holding Partners LLC. Church officials said they decided to sell the headquarters in 2018 after deciding it was no longer cost effective. Sean Dolan, a diocesan spokesman, said Friday that the location of the new headquarters has not been finalized. The diocese also decided to close seven grammar schools over the past year amid declining enrollment and revenue.

The Buffalo (N.Y.) Diocese dramatically cut spending after filing for bankruptcy, eliminating most of its funding of Catholic elementary schools while paying lawyers millions of dollars over the past year, the Buffalo News reported. Court records show the diocese spent $3.8 million on lawyer fees and other bankruptcy-related expenses in the first year of bankruptcy — an amount nearly equal to the subsidies it used to provide to 34 Catholic elementary schools. Most of the schools ended up being able to absorb the loss of the diocese aid in large part because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to an enrollment boom and a windfall of taxpayer-funded Paycheck Protection Program loans and grants for parishes and schools. Operational diocese spending between March 1, 2020, and Feb. 28, 2021, was down by 113% when compared with the diocese’s most recently published financial statement, according to an analysis of court records and financial statements. Spending on regular operations, such as pastoral costs, central support ministry and religious personnel development for the 12 months of bankruptcy was $8.5 million. It was $18.2 million in the diocese’s 2019 fiscal year, which ended Aug. 31, 2019.

The National Rifle Association and New York attorney general’s office plan to hold settlement talks in the coming days to see if they can resolve disputes over the gun rights organization’s bankruptcy case, lawyers for both sides said yesterday, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Negotiations are intended to gauge if either the NRA or state authorities can narrow or resolve legal fights that will be the subject of a scheduled trial examining the gun group’s decision to file for chapter 11 protection in January, and whether its leadership had the authority to do so. New York authorities have said the case should be thrown out. The trial, now scheduled to begin in early April, concerns New York’s request to dismiss the bankruptcy case or displace the NRA’s management through appointment of an independent trustee. Such discussions are common in bankruptcy proceedings. But talks will be especially difficult because of the charged politics around the gun group, a lawyer for the NRA said during a hearing in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Dallas.

The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that Ford Motor Co. must face product-liability claims stemming from serious auto accidents in Montana and Minnesota, a setback for corporations seeking to limit their exposure to lawsuits in state courts, the Wall Street Journal reported. The court, in an opinion by Justice Elena Kagan, ruled unanimously that Montana’s and Minnesota’s jurisdiction over Ford was appropriate because the auto maker “has a veritable truckload” of business contacts with both states, including advertising, selling and servicing the vehicles that the lawsuits claimed were defective. Ford argued that jurisdiction was improper because the two specific vehicles involved in the crashes — a 1996 Explorer in one case and a 1994 Crown Victoria in the other — weren’t originally sold or built by Ford in Montana and Minnesota. The Supreme Court said that didn’t matter. When a company like Ford serves a market for a product in a state and that product causes injury in the state to one of its residents, the state’s courts may entertain the resulting suit,” Justice Kagan wrote. The decision affirmed rulings by the high courts of both states.

Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain extended an injunction on lawsuits against members of the Sackler family, owners of Purdue Pharma, until April 21, NPR reported. Judge Drain made the ruling yesterday from his court in White Plains, N.Y., while urging parties to move swiftly to hash out a final deal over the future of the embattled drug company. More than two dozen state attorneys general are still hoping to move forward with separate civil claims against the Sacklers, who earned more than $10.8 billion selling opioids. According to Judge Drain, however, that kind of legal scrum would "irreparably harm the ability to conclude these negotiations." He also suggested the threat of new state lawsuits against the Sacklers was a "misguided" effort to gain leverage over the family in bankruptcy talks. At issue is how Purdue Pharma and its owners will be held accountable for their role in an opioid epidemic that's killed more than 450,000 Americans. The drug-maker filed for bankruptcy in 2019, facing an avalanche of claims linked to the marketing and sale of its highly addictive painkiller Oxycontin.

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey says her office secured a guarantee through bankruptcy court to process refunds for Boston Sports Clubs customers who were charged for their memberships during the pandemic, WCVB.com reported. Last year, WCVB showed how Boston Sports Clubs kept charging members during the shutdown despite laying off staff and closing its doors. When the gym reopened, members say BSC made it nearly impossible to cancel without further charges, a violation of Massachusetts state law. After receiving thousands of complaints, Massachusetts Attorney General Healey sued BSC in the fall and the company declared bankruptcy. Healey now says her office secured a guarantee through bankruptcy court to process refunds for customers. Now, almost 600 customers will be getting back about $127,000, or an average of $215 each. Healey said her lawsuit is still moving forward and is seeking further assets from the company and its former leaders to make sure everyone who is entitled to a refund will get one.

McKinsey & Co. will pay $45 million to settle an investigation by Nevada of the big consulting firm’s role in fueling the U.S. opioid epidemic, Reuters reported. Nevada had been the lone holdout among U.S. states investigating McKinsey’s conduct, and Monday’s settlement boosts the firm’s payout for opioid settlements to about $641 million. McKinsey had in early February reached a $573 million settlement with 47 U.S. states, the District of Columbia and five U.S. territories, plus $23 million of settlements with Washington state and West Virginia. A McKinsey spokesman said the firm did not admit wrongdoing or liability, believes its past work was lawful and has denied contrary allegations. The settlements came after lawsuits showed how McKinsey advised drug manufacturers, including Purdue Pharma, which makes OxyContin, on how to market opioids, including by targeting high-volume prescribers.

Congressional Democrats are seeking to prevent members of the Sackler family who own OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP from using the drug company’s bankruptcy to get legal releases freeing them from government lawsuits over the opioid painkiller, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), chairwoman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, and senior committee member Rep. Mark DeSaulnier (D-Calif.) introduced a bill on Friday specifying that bankruptcy judges cannot release legal claims brought by states, tribes, municipalities or the U.S. government against a bankrupt company’s owners, like the Sacklers, or its directors, officers or other third parties with ties to a chapter 11 case. The legislative proposal comes after the Sacklers offered to pay $4.28 billion over the next decade in exchange for legal releases that would resolve lawsuits accusing Purdue of helping fuel the opioid epidemic. The settlement offer is part of a larger multibillion-dollar reorganization plan designed to get Purdue out of chapter 11. Attorneys general from 24 states plus Washington, D.C., have come out against Purdue’s plan and have demanded greater transparency and more upfront money from the Sacklers.

The Blackjewel coal mining company can walk away from cleaning up and reclaiming coal mines covered by more than 30 permits in Kentucky under a liquidation agreement reached Friday in federal bankruptcy court in Charleston, West Virginia, the Louisville Courier Journal reported. About 170 other Blackjewel permits in Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia will be placed into legal limbo for six months while Blackjewel attempts to sell them to other coal mining companies, attorneys said. Any permits that are unable to be transferred can then also be abandoned by the company, once the nation’s sixth-largest coal producer. The Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet was preparing a written statement on the decision late Friday but a spokesman said it was not immediately available and declined to comment. Thousands of acres of mountainous land in Kentucky alone have been disturbed by strip mining allowed by the permits that were before the judge. Both the state and the companies that issued bonds guaranteeing clean-up and reclamation of the dynamite-blasted landscapes had warned in court proceedings that there might not be enough money to do all the required work.