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Exide Holdings Inc. got court approval of its bankruptcy plan, allowing the battery manufacturer to sell its overseas assets and avoid paying for a full cleanup of a former recycling facility in California over the state’s objections, Bloomberg Law reported. The plan, which was amended four times before it was approved on Friday, incorporates a global settlement Exide reached with its creditors, purchasers of the overseas assets, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and ten state environmental agencies. California’s was the only environmental agency that rejected the settlement agreement. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) called the plan approval “dangerous” and said that the state would appeal it. The chapter 11 plan allows Exide to sell its European and overseas assets to a group of existing lenders in a $559 million credit bid, preserving 5,000 jobs. The company also will wind down its involvement at former sites in the U.S. that still need environmental remediation. After filing for bankruptcy in May, it sold its North American business operations to an affiliate of Atlas Holdings LLC for $178.6 million. The settlement incorporated into the plan creates a $10 million multi-state environmental trust that would manage future environmental cleanup at former Exide sites. California would receive $2.6 million for a former battery recycling facility in Vernon, Calif., if the state signs onto the agreement.

The Weinstein Company Holdings LLC’s bankruptcy plan is an attempt by the company’s insurers to hijack the bankruptcy process to limit their litigation exposure, according to a group of women with sexual abuse claims against the studio and former directors, Bloomberg Law reported. Producer Alexandra Canosa and actresses Wedil David and Dominique Huett on Thursday urged the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware to convert the production company’s chapter 11 case to a trustee-controlled chapter 7. The pending restructuring proposal “permits the insurance companies to re-write existing policies and offer a fraction of policy coverage that is available,” they said in a court filing. Instead, the bankruptcy judge should reject the insurers’ settlement arrangement and allow Harvey Weinstein’s accusers to pursue potentially greater recoveries in their own, separate court cases, the women said. The chapter 11 plan “is the best opportunity for a meaningful recovery for holders of sexual misconduct claims, as well as the rest of the debtors’ creditors,” the company said in a Thursday court filing. The defunct studio is seeking to establish a $17 million fund for sexual abuse victims as part of its plan, but said it will only seek confirmation if a class of sexual misconduct claimants votes to approve it. 

Exide Technologies LLC is plowing ahead with efforts to walk away from contaminated sites in 10 states through bankruptcy, over a challenge from authorities in California, home to some of the battery maker’s most toxic facilities, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Lead and arsenic contamination at a former battery-recycling plant in Vernon, near Los Angeles, poses a continuing threat to schools, parks and homes in working-class, primarily Latino neighborhoods, according to state officials. Exide is being broken up in its third bankruptcy proceeding and has said it doesn’t have the money to clean up the site. Once a central element of Exide’s business plan, providing access to cheap lead, the Vernon facility was shut down in 2015 as part of a deal for the company to avoid federal criminal prosecution. The company’s U.S. operating businesses have been sold, and bondholders, including AllianceBernstein LP and D.E. Shaw Galvanic Portfolios LLC, are positioned to take over Exide’s battery-making operations outside the U.S. That leaves the Vernon facility and other shut-down sites in states including Florida, Pennsylvania and Texas—facilities that Exide wants to park in a trust supplied with funding for cleanup.

A group of 25 state attorneys general oppose a settlement of U.S. opioid probes being negotiated with Purdue Pharma LP and members of the wealthy Sackler family who own it, arguing that the deal would improperly entangle state and local officials with future sales of the company’s addictive pain drug OxyContin, Reuters reported. In a letter to U.S. Attorney General William Barr, the state attorneys general take issue with the Justice Department’s condition that Purdue transform into a “public benefit company” that would be run on behalf of thousands of U.S. communities suing the drugmaker and Sackler family members. The letter cited a previous Reuters report detailing discussions to resolve the investigations. One controversial aspect of that proposal is that the entity would steer proceeds from continued sales of OxyContin to those litigants, which include myriad state and local governments. The attorneys general say that the proposal “compromises the proper roles of the private sector and government” as officials attempt to hold alleged perpetrators of the nation’s opioid crisis accountable, according to a copy of the correspondence reviewed by Reuters. They contend that Purdue should instead be sold to a private buyer, adding that one unidentified suitor for the company has emerged.

About 7,300 men who say the Boy Scouts of America failed to protect them from sexual predators are waiting to hear whether they can participate in talks aimed at calculating how much the organization must pay in a settlement, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Judge Laurie Selber Silverstein said she was likely to issue a decision this week on the matter, a controversy that erupted as the bankruptcy case the Boy Scouts initiated in February reaches a crucial phase. The men are part of an informal group represented by a collection of law firms calling itself the Coalition of Abused Scouts for Justice. An official committee that speaks for all those with sexual-abuse claims is already taking part in negotiations with the Boy Scouts, and the informal group wants to join in as well. Claims are still coming in, but lawyers say the Boy Scouts could ultimately face accusations from tens of thousands of men. Mediation has been going on for months in the bankruptcy case, which halted the hundreds of sex-abuse lawsuits the organization already faced. The group asking to join the talks is an informal committee like those that typically play roles in major bankruptcy cases, negotiating on behalf of groups of bondholders or shareholders. Members include about 7,300 people who have formally authorized their attorneys to participate, Sunni Beville, a lawyer representing the coalition, said during a hearing yesterday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del.

Mallinckrodt Plc became the third major opioid maker to go bankrupt after being swamped by claims it profited by fueling the U.S. opioid epidemic, Bloomberg News reported. The drug company said yesterday that it filed for chapter 11 protection in Delaware after getting creditors and claimants to agree on a restructuring plan that hands ownership to bondholders, wipes out shareholders and sets aside $1.6 billion to resolve all opioid litigation. The filing also will help resolve a U.S. government probe into whether the company defrauded Medicaid by overcharging for Acthar Gel, its top-selling multiple sclerosis drug. The move comes as Mallinckrodt was readying for two trials over accusations it illegally marketed opioids and failed to properly oversee large shipments of the highly addictive pills, which have been tied to an epidemic of abuse that killed thousands of Americans. A judge is likely to halt all litigation while the bankruptcy plan makes its way through the court process. The agreement includes certain debt holders, state attorneys general and lawyers for municipalities that sued to recoup billions in tax dollars spent on battling opioid addictions. Mallinckrodt will set up a trust to oversee payments from the $1.6 billion fund to claimants, and give them warrants to buy a stake in the reorganized company that could total nearly 20 percent, according to a statement.

A U.S. bankruptcy judge in Albuquerque has ruled that lawyers for clergy sex abuse survivors can file lawsuits alleging the Archdiocese of Santa Fe (N.M.) fraudulently transferred an estimated $150 million in assets to parishes in an attempt to avoid bigger payouts to victims, the Albuquerque Journal reported. The decision by Judge David T. Thuma in the chapter 11 reorganization case opens the door to what could be a multimillion-dollar boon to hundreds of alleged victims. Or it could set off protracted, costly legal appeals that would tap funds that could have paid valid abuse claims. Lawyers for the 94 archdiocese parishes, several of which predate the archdiocese by many decades or even centuries, predicted at a court hearing in August that the “decimation” of certain parishes would result if the lawsuits into the transfers go forward. Judge Thuma didn’t address whether he thought the claims surrounding the transfers ultimately would succeed, but wrote in an 18-page ruling filed on Sunday that some litigation might be needed “to help the ongoing efforts to reach a global settlement in this case.” Negotiations between the parties have stalled in the nearly 2-year-old bankruptcy case, which the archdiocese filed in late 2018 to deal with a surge of claims alleging childhood sexual abuse perpetrated by priests and other clergy. An estimated $52 million has been paid in out-of-court settlements to victims in prior years.

PG&E Corp. shares slumped after the company said that investigators are investigating its equipment as a possible cause of a fire that killed four people and burned more than 56,000 acres in the Sierra Nevada mountains of Northern California, Bloomberg News reported. The company is also warning that it may need to cut off power in some areas to reduce the chances that its equipment will start additional fires this week. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as Cal Fire, has taken some of the utility’s equipment in its probe of the Zogg Fire in Shasta County, which is 95 percent contained, PG&E said in a filing on Friday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The utility has filed a report on the incident with state regulators. PG&E said in a statement that its report was preliminary and it was cooperating with investigators. Cal Fire has yet to determine the cause of the blaze.

Mallinckrodt Plc, a maker of opioids and other drugs, is nearing a deal to hand majority ownership to its unsecured bondholders as part of a bankruptcy filing, Bloomberg reported. The bonds would be traded for most of Mallinckrodt’s equity and some new debt, and the debt of higher-ranked lenders would be reinstated or replaced by new securities that fully cover their claims. The lenders and opioid claimants would be included in the agreement. Debtwire reported earlier on that there were negotiations to give the bondholders equity and new debt. Most of the company’s unsecured debt trades at about a quarter of its original value. Mallinckrodt would become the third major opioid producer to file for bankruptcy, amid an addiction crisis that kills more than 100 Americans daily. The companies are facing off against thousands of plaintiffs from states, cities and counties that blame drug makers and distributors for the epidemic of overdose deaths.