A federal judge approved on Friday the $5.7 million sale of the Archdiocese of Agana's (Guam) Accion Hotel property, the Pacific Daily News reported. The proceeds will help pay clergy sex abuse claims. U.S. District Court Chief Judge Frances Tydingco-Gatewood, at a hearing, granted the archdiocese's motion for authorization to sell the beach side Yona property to Guam-based TF Investment LLC. Judge Tydingco-Gatewood's decision comes more than a week after the investor previously court-approved to buy the property, Georgia-based bSide Partners, pulled out of its $6.1 million purchase.
Albany Bishop Edward Scharfenberger, who is temporarily leading the diocese in Western New York, said that he is close to making a decision on bankruptcy for the Buffalo church, News10.com reported. The cloud of bankruptcy has hung over the Buffalo diocese since the Child Victims Act went into effect in New York State earlier this year. The Rochester diocese has already filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy. Scharfenberger was named administrator of the Buffalo diocese in December after Buffalo Bishop Richard Malone stepped down amid allegations that he mishandled the scandal.
A clause that would allow California to take over bankrupt utility giant PG&E Corp. under certain circumstances has emerged as a big sticking point in negotiations between the company and Governor Gavin Newsom (D), Bloomberg News reported. Newsom wants the power company to include a provision in its reorganization proposal that would allow the state to take control of its assets if it fails to meet performance and safety metrics. Negotiating such a clause has become one of the biggest challenges in talks between the company and the governor’s office. Newsom’s support is crucial to PG&E’s efforts to exit the biggest utility bankruptcy in U.S. history by a state-imposed deadline of June 30. The power giant filed for chapter 11 in January after its power lines were tied to deadly blazes that erupted across Northern California in 2017 and 2018, leading to an estimated $30 billion in liabilities.
Bankruptcy Judge Dennis Montali yesterday approved PG&E Corp.’s $13.5 billion settlement with victims of Californian wildfires, and the company’s stock rallied as the utility gained momentum to emerge from bankruptcy in June as planned, Reuters reported. The settlement provides cash and PG&E stock to a trust for the benefit of individual wildfire victims. Judge Montali also approved an $11 billion agreement with insurance companies, locking up the last and two most significant creditor groups. Adding momentum to PG&E’s plan, a lawyer for Governor Gavin Newsom (D) told Judge Montali the governor viewed the wildfire settlement as fair. “We don’t want to stand in the way of that,” Nancy Mitchell said. On Friday, Newsom rejected the PG&E reorganization plan and said the company would need a new board of directors and stronger finances to comply with a recently enacted wildfire law, known as A.B. 1054.
N.F.L. stars and other investors in Vicis, the heralded Seattle-based helmet maker, were officially informed that the company was running out of cash, the New York Times reported. “Our employees are currently furloughed and we need to raise capital in order to continue operating, or we may have no other option but to wind down all operations,” wrote Ralph Greene Jr., who took over as the new chief executive just days before, in a letter. The plea for millions of dollars to cover basic expenses represents a startling fall for a company that has won plaudits for its high-tech helmets and raised more than $90 million from venture capital and some of the N.F.L.’s highest-profile players. The company, with a board that includes highly respected doctors, business leaders and military advisers, also secured $1.1 million in grants from the N.F.L., though the league does not have an ownership stake. The financial crisis at Vicis highlights one of the biggest challenges in football’s fight to make the game safer. Most brain scientists dismiss the idea that a new helmet can significantly reduce the risk of traumatic brain injuries and long-term brain damage. Wilson, Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and dozens of other players wear a Vicis helmet each Sunday. Shock absorbers inside the helmet have been shown to reduce the impact of direct hits and limit the rotational energy the head absorbs. So far, that has not been enough for Vicis to succeed. Youth and high school football participation is falling, and the helmet business is dominated by Riddell and a handful of companies that are weighed down by insurance costs. Still, Vicis and other companies continue to try to develop better helmets for athletes and other commercial and military uses.
As scrutiny of Purdue Pharma’s role in the opioid epidemic intensified during the past dozen years, its owners, members of the Sackler family, withdrew more than $10 billion from the company, distributing it among trusts and overseas holding companies, according to a new audit commissioned by Purdue, the New York Times reported. The amount is more than eight times what the family took out of the company in the 13 years after OxyContin, its signature product, was approved in 1995. The audit is likely to renew questions about how much the Sacklers should pay to resolve more than 2,800 lawsuits that seek to hold Purdue accountable for the opioid crisis. The family has offered to contribute at least $3 billion in cash as part of a settlement to resolve thousands of lawsuits brought by state and local governments against Purdue. But 24 states, led by Massachusetts and New York, have refused to sign onto the agreement, arguing that the Sacklers should pay more. The new report, a 350-page forensic accounting prepared by Alix Partners, a consulting firm that Purdue has hired to help guide the company through chapter 11 restructuring, was filed in bankruptcy court yesterday.
Bankrupt utility giant PG&E Corp. has removed a requirement that California Governor Gavin Newsom sign off on its settlement with wildfire victims, trying to buy more time for its restructuring plan, Bloomberg News reported. PG&E reached an agreement yesterday with representatives of the victims of fires ignited by its equipment to eliminate the provision after Newsom said on Friday that the power company’s proposed reorganization plan doesn’t comply with state law. San Francisco-based PG&E announced the decision one day before it was required by the $13.5 billion fire victims deal to respond to Newsom’s rejection and address his concerns. The governor had described the utility’s restructuring plan as falling “woefully short” and called for an entirely new board and a better financing structure, among other things. Killing the clause buys PG&E more time to shape a restructuring plan around the settlement with wildfire victims, which has emerged as the main obstacle to its exit from the biggest utility bankruptcy in U.S. history. The settlement is scheduled for a hearing today in bankruptcy court.
California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) on Friday rejected a bankruptcy reorganization plan submitted by PG&E Corp., the state’s largest investor-owned utility, saying its proposal fails to meet the requirements of a recently enacted wildfire law, Reuters reported. The decision by Newsom, sent to PG&E in a letter, complicates the company’s push to exit bankruptcy and provide billions of dollars to victims of devastating wildfires in 2017 and 2018 sparked by the utility’s power lines. The embattled utility now has until Tuesday to further amend its plan to Newsom’s satisfaction, but his criticism of the reorganization package as it was presented by PG&E a day earlier was sweeping. Newsom said that the plan lacks “major changes in governance” and tougher safety enforcement mechanisms mandated under the state wildfire statute, known as Assembly Bill 1054, which was enacted in July. The governor also said PG&E’s plan, including a proposed $13.5 billion settlement with victims of wildfires blamed on its power lines, would leave the company with a weakened capital structure and “limited ability to withstand future financial and operational headwinds.”
Insys Therapeutics Inc. founder John Kapoor and other former executives convicted of bribing doctors and lying to insurance companies to boost sales of an opioid painkiller should pay $306 million in restitution to insurers, federal prosecutors said in a court filing, Bloomberg News reported. The former billionaire and four other ex-executives “defrauded and misled insurance companies to extract payment for these opioids,” the prosecutors said. “Defendants committed these crimes to boost profits, and did so at the expense of victims nationwide.” The five would all be responsible for the total restitution. Prosecutors will address prison time in a subsequent filing. Kapoor, the first chief executive of an opioid maker convicted at trial, was found guilty in May of a racketeering conspiracy that illegally drove sales of Subsys. The jury also convicted sales executives Michael Gurry, Richard Simon, Joseph Rowan and Sunrise Lee. The scheme included operating an in-house call center whose representatives were trained to dupe insurance companies into covering the costs of the liquid opioid Subsys by claiming patients had cancer, the jury found. Jurors heard hours of recorded calls in which Insys employees misrepresented patient records.
Victims of the collapse of a 174-foot pedestrian bridge near Florida International University’s Sweetwater campus in March 2018 are on course to receive a $103 million settlement after U.S. Bankruptcy Judge A. Jay Cristol approved a reorganization plan for general contractor Magnum Construction Management on Friday, Law.com reported. Formerly known as Munilla Construction Management, the company filed for chapter 11 protection in March. The reorganization plan includes the settlement, which will be distributed in January, provided it survives as anticipated during an appeal window ending Dec. 28. Six people died and and 10 were injured when 950 tons of concrete and metal collapsed onto a state road, Southwest Eighth Street. It resulted in litigation over alleged design flaws and other errors, which will be resolved under the reorganization plan. The plan follows an earlier settlement between MCM and its insurer, which agreed to pay $42 million to victims and their families.
