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The Delaware judge presiding over the Weinstein Co. bankruptcy has rejected a request by four women who have accused disgraced film mogul Harvey Weinstein of sexual misconduct to put her approval of the company’s bankruptcy plan on hold, the Associated Press reported. The judge issued a one-page order on Wednesday denying the request for an emergency stay while the women challenge approval of the plan in federal district court in Delaware. Attorneys for the four women responded on Friday by asking the district court to put the plan confirmation on hold while it considers their appeal. According to a bankruptcy court filing, the plan has been “substantially consummated,” with an effective date of Thursday. The plan is being challenged by producer Alexandra Canosa and actresses Wedil David and Dominique Huett, who have accused Weinstein of sexual assault, and a former Weinstein Co. employee who claims she was subjected to a hostile work environment. Attorneys for the objectors say the plan includes overly broad releases from liability for third parties such as insurance companies and former Weinstein Co. officers and directors. They also argue that it contains a provision that unfairly prevents non-consenting sexual misconduct claimants from pursuing their claims. The bankruptcy plan provides about $35 million for creditors. That’s about $11.5 million less than under a previous plan, which was scrapped after a federal judge in New York refused to approve a proposed $19 million settlement between Weinstein and some of his accusers. The settlement in that purported class-action lawsuit was a key component of the initial bankruptcy plan.

Kirkland & Ellis LLP is showing up in a special role in the National Rifle Association’s tangled bankruptcy case as the gun-rights group faces challenges over its decision to seek court protection, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The NRA on Wednesday filed court papers seeking permission to hire Kirkland as special litigation counsel after it said that lawsuits drove it to file for bankruptcy. New York has accused the NRA of allegedly misusing charitable funds, adding to a number of other legal fights over alleged mismanagement. Managing the litigation is the chief goal of the bankruptcy case, the NRA has said. Some Kirkland partners, including former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement, have handled Second Amendment matters for the NRA for years as part of its business with the gun rights organization. The bankruptcy rules being invoked to tap Kirkland as a special litigation counsel limit the purposes for which the law firm could work, and indicate it won’t be involved in restructuring the organization. The move to hire Kirkland as a special litigator in chapter 11 comes after federal bankruptcy watchdogs challenged the qualifications of the NRA’s longtime lead law firm, Brewer, Attorneys and Counselors, to serve as special counsel in the bankruptcy case for work on matters different than Kirkland would.

The judge presiding over the Boys Scout of America bankruptcy is weighing a request by insurance companies for permission to serve document requests on 1,400 people who have filed sexual abuse claims and to question scores of them under oath in an effort to determine whether there is widespread fraud in the claims process, the Associated Press reported. The insurance companies maintain that tens of thousands of sexual abuse claims that have been filed in the case appear to be barred by the passage of time based on statutes of limitation in many states. Thousands more lack essential information needed to determine their validity, such as identifying a connection with the Boy Scouts or the name of a perpetrator, according to the insurers. In addition to wanting to question alleged abuse survivors, the insurance companies on Wednesday requested permission to question and collect documents from 15 plaintiffs’ attorneys who personally signed hundreds of claims. Claim forms typically must be signed by the claimants themselves, but in the days leading up to the deadline last November, some attorneys signed several hundred claim forms a day. The insurers contend that a large percentage of attorney-signed claims are missing critical information, and that many appear to be submitted “machine-gun style,” with photocopied attorney signatures and signature pages generated before the proofs of claim were even created. Bankruptcy rules state that by signing a document submitted to the court, an attorney certifies that he or she has reviewed the contents to ensure it has evidentiary support.

A committee of clergy-abuse victims is seeking a bankruptcy-court order to force the Diocese of Rockville Centre to hand over an internal report detailing the institution’s transfer of millions of dollars of assets within the past four years, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Lawyers for an official committee of abuse survivors filed papers on Friday seeking a report on a number of transactions carried out by the suburban Long Island diocese, including the transfer of cemeteries, real estate in Huntington, N.Y., and $3 million in cash to a number of affiliates. Abuse victims’ efforts to force the diocese to disclose details of the diocese-authorized inquiry signals potential coming fights over transfers it undertook that victims believe may have shielded valuable assets from those seeking compensation. Rockville Centre filed for bankruptcy in October, becoming the largest diocese to seek chapter 11 protection in response to lawsuits by victims of sexual abuse. Friday’s court filing concerns the Independent Advisory Committee, a body the diocese created in 2019 to investigate, litigate and settle any potential claims that the transfers were fraudulent and carried out to shift assets beyond the reach of abuse survivors.

The law firms defending Purdue Pharma LP in probes into its OxyContin painkiller didn’t disclose an existing deal with Purdue’s owners to keep information shared between them confidential when the drugmaker filed for bankruptcy, the Wall Street Journal reported. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and WilmerHale received court permission in November 2019 to continue working for Purdue after it sought chapter 11 protection. But the firms’ nondisclosure of the agreement with the members of the Sackler family who own Purdue, and whose interests are at odds with company creditors, skirted bankruptcy rules meant to reveal potential conflicts of interest, bankruptcy experts said. Earlier this week, Michael Quinn, a lawyer representing five people with wrongful death and personal injury claims against Purdue, questioned whether the 2018 defense agreement restricted what Skadden and WilmerHale could disclose to creditors as they have probed whether they can recover billions of dollars from the drugmaker’s owners. Even though the law firms have represented Purdue for years, they have additional obligations to company creditors while the company is in chapter 11. A separate committee of Purdue creditors has been probing the transfer of billions of dollars from Purdue to the Sacklers before the company filed bankruptcy, according to court documents. The committee is examining if these roughly $10 billion in transfers to the Sacklers can be recovered for the benefit of Purdue creditors, court papers say. Mr. Quinn said in his letter he is concerned that the obligation in the defense agreement to keep Sackler information confidential conflicted with Skadden’s and WilmerHale’s duties in bankruptcy to Purdue and its creditors. The Sacklers have consistently denied throughout the bankruptcy case that the transfers were improper and said more than half the money was used to pay taxes or invested in international ventures. However, they offered to cede control of Purdue and pay a $3 billion cash settlement to resolve creditor claims against them.

New York-based Roman Catholic dioceses that filed for chapter 11 protection to address child sex abuse lawsuits are fueling tensions by asking bankruptcy courts for a victims’ claim filing window that’s shorter than what survivors were given under a recently enacted state law, Bloomberg Law reported. New York’s Child Victims Act, signed into law by Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) in 2019, has spurred a flood of abuse lawsuits against the church and other organizations. Victims have filed more than 4,800 lawsuits against alleged abusers and institutions that harbored or concealed them, state court records show. Four of New York’s eight local dioceses — Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, and Long Island’s Rockville Centre — have filed chapter 11, allowing them to ease the burden of litigation by consolidating victims’ lawsuits against them and negotiating with claimants as a single class. Dealing with shortened deadlines could cause stress for victims and suppress their legal rights in emotionally charged, controversial cases, victims’ proponents say. The New York law allows child sex abuse victims to sue at any time before they turn 55 and creates a temporary window — until Aug. 14, 2021 — to file claims that previously were blocked by the statute of limitations. The Bankruptcy Code, on the other hand, allows debtors to give as little as 21 days’ notice of an upcoming deadline to submit claims in a bankruptcy proceeding. None of the dioceses in chapter 11 have argued for that bare minimum. But they all say the bankruptcy court shouldn’t align the notice period with the CVA’s expansive time frame. Bankruptcy judges have recognized the unique nature of sex abuse-related cases. “This case is not like a typical commercial filing, in which the debtor can readily identify from its books and ledgers all of the actual and disputed trade creditors,” Judge Carl L. Bucki of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of New York observed in a September opinion in the Buffalo diocese’s case. By reopening the statute of limitations, New York “expressed a policy decision that deserves the respect of this court,” he said.

The Diocese of Winona-Rochester in Minnesota says it has reached a $21.5 million settlement with 145 individuals who were sexually abused by its clergy members, ABC News reported. It is the last Catholic diocese in the state to settle its abuse claims, filed in response to a 2013 law that temporarily extended the statute of limitations on abuse cases. The diocese was one of five in Minnesota that had filed for chapter 11 protection in response to abuse claims against its priests. The settlement, announced on Wednesday, allows the diocese to submit a financial reorganization plan to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for final approval. The dioceses of St. Cloud, New Ulm and Duluth and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis have emerged from bankruptcy.

The National Rifle Association’s former advertising agency requested that the gun group’s bankruptcy case be tossed out, saying it was filed in bad faith, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Ackerman McQueen Inc., which spearheaded the NRA’s ad campaigns for decades before getting caught up in a battle for control of the organization, is now the biggest unsecured creditor in the chapter 11 proceedings. Ackerman filed papers yesterday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Dallas asking that the bankruptcy case be dismissed on the grounds that it amounts to an improper effort to gain a litigation advantage over the New York state authorities that have sued to break up the NRA. “It’s a disappointing, but predictable, response from a terminated vendor and defendant in litigation involving significant claims of wrongdoing,” said Michael J. Collins, partner at Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors. “Ackerman McQueen continues to attack the NRA and its advisors to deflect from the allegations against the agency. We will continue to operate within the parameters of the bankruptcy court — to the benefit of the NRA, its members, and its vendors.” The filing comes on the heels of a motion by a member of the NRA’s board, Phillip Journey, who asked for the appointment of an examiner “to bring to light the veracity of the alleged fraud, dishonesty, incompetence, and gross mismanagement that has plagued the NRA’s reputation.” At a court hearing yesterday, Judge Harlin Hale said that he had decided not to read any news accounts of the NRA’s high-profile bankruptcy, which is still in the early stages. Journey’s motion said last month’s bankruptcy filing was a surprise to one or more directors on the NRA board. In a statement, NRA lawyer William A. Brewer said Journey was mistaken in suggesting the bankruptcy filing was the product of a flawed process. Ackerman’s critique argues the NRA is improperly using bankruptcy to escape a raft of litigation that the NRA itself initiated, as well as official enforcement proceedings that threaten to expose financial wrongdoing, including by New York Attorney General Letitia James.