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PG&E Corp. bondholders have challenged the California utility over control of its bankruptcy proceeding, offering Wall Street’s version of a solution to wildfire liabilities estimated at $30 billion or more, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Investors including Elliott Management Corp. and Pacific Investment Management Co. filed court papers outlining a chapter 11 plan that would include up to $18 billion for victims of blazes linked to PG&E’s equipment. Bondholders say that they would raise $30 billion, most of it in the form of equity investment, to help PG&E pay off its damages, according to court papers. Ratepayers wouldn’t pay more, California’s green power future would be assured and Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) would see the state’s largest utility exit from bankruptcy by next year, if PG&E and its creditors accept the offer, the bondholders say. PG&E is looking at all options, according to a statement from the company.

Nearly 400 claims have been filed against New Mexico's largest and oldest Roman Catholic diocese as part of a pending bankruptcy case that stems from the clergy sex abuse scandal, church officials announced on Friday, the Associated Press reported. The Archdiocese of Santa Fe reported that 395 people filed claims against the church as of the June 17 deadline. That included 374 claims involving allegations of sex abuse. The remaining 21 were related to other grievances. The archdiocese shocked parishioners across much of New Mexico when it filed for chapter 11 reorganization last year, joining nearly two dozen other dioceses around the U.S. that have been struggling with the fallout from the abuse scandal. When it first announced its decision to file for reorganization, the archdiocese said it had already paid out $52 million in insurance money and its own funds to settle 300 claims that had been filed over the years. In its bankruptcy petition, the archdiocese claimed nearly $50 million in assets, including real estate valued at more than $31 million. The filing also showed more than $57 million in property was being held in trust for numerous parishes, and property transfers worth an additional $34 million were done over the past couple years.

California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) has proposed helping utilities create a fund of up to $21 billion to compensate future victims of wildfires sparked by the companies’ equipment or employees, Reuters reported. The proposal by the Democratic governor follows the bankruptcy filing earlier this year of San Francisco-based utility PG&E Corp, which anticipates $30 billion in liabilities from wildfires that have been blamed on its equipment, including the state’s deadliest blaze which killed more than 80 people last year. The state’s other two large utilities, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric, have seen their credit ratings downgraded over wildfire concerns. Since 2000, California has endured 15 of the 20 most destructive wildfires in state history. Newsom has blamed climate change for much of the increased risk from fires.

PG&E Corp. plans to pay a group of top executives nearly $11 million in performance-based bonuses this year, the bankrupt utility owner said yesterday, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The payouts would probably be a mix of cash and stock, and based on factors weighted heavily toward safety, the company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Twelve executives, excluding CEO Bill Johnson, are eligible for the bonuses, court papers show. PG&E cannot award the bonuses without approval from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of California. The company and its utility subsidiary, Pacific Gas and Electric Co., entered bankruptcy protection in January largely because of their liability in recent devastating wildfires, including the historically deadly 2018 Camp Fire that state officials say was started by PG&E power lines.

Federal bankruptcy watchdogs turned a cold shoulder to states and cities battling the opioid epidemic, denying them seats on the official committee representing creditors of drugmaker Insys Therapeutics Inc., WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Lawyers for states and towns across the U.S. were sent packing early Wednesday at a meeting in Wilmington, Del., where a bankruptcy overseer from the Justice Department was picking which creditors will have the loudest voice in the first chapter 11 filing stemming from the opioid crisis. “Obviously, we are very disappointed. We wanted to be on that committee,” said Wesley Duke, a Kentucky deputy attorney general. The states and cities will explore other options, he said, adding that the lack of a committee seat won’t stop Kentucky from protecting its interests. The committee will weigh in on legal questions that could sway future drug company decisions on whether to resort to bankruptcy. Court rulings that rein in government creditors could make chapter 11 a more attractive option for many. As corporate bankruptcies go, Insys is a midsize case with about $37 million in cash and a business that has been tarnished by multiple criminal convictions. The company is putting its assets up for sale while contending with an onslaught of claims from government bodies, individuals and insurers alleging it profited from fueling opioid addiction. The proceedings are being closely watched across the drug industry as a blueprint for a potential bankruptcy filing by Purdue Pharma LP, which is considering filing for chapter 11 to cope with lawsuits and investigations surrounding its OxyContin painkiller. “Insys is the test case for Purdue,“ said Nicholas Kajon, a lawyer representing health-insurance buyers who allege that Insys inflated health-care costs by pushing the opioid Subsys.

The bankruptcy of a South Carolina firearms distributor highlights the limits of Bank of America Corp.’s efforts to distance itself from the gun industry, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. While the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank last year said it would stop making new loans to manufacturers of military-style firearms sold to civilians, the pledge doesn’t apply to retailers or distributors of guns. Now, as Bank of America is leading a $25 million financing package to help United Sporting Cos. sell off inventory in bulk and liquidate its operations in chapter 11, some advocates on both sides of the gun-control debate are questioning the bank’s decision to make a distinction between gun makers and retailers. Some gun-control groups say the bank hasn’t done enough to distance itself from the industry, while Second Amendment rights supporters say it already has gone too far. Bank of America was one of a number of companies that sought to distance themselves from the firearms industry in the wake of a school shooting in Parkland, Fla., that killed 17 people in February 2018. Since Bank of America’s pledge, mass shootings — at a Pittsburgh synagogue; at a Thousand Oaks, Calif., bar; and at a Virginia Beach, Va., municipal building — have continued across the U.S.

PG&E Corp., the California utility giant that went bankrupt five months ago amid crippling wildfire liabilities, has reached a $1 billion settlement with local government agencies that were harmed by blazes its equipment ignited, Bloomberg News reported. The deal between PG&E and 14 public entities includes a settlement for the town of Paradise, which was destroyed in November’s Camp Fire — the deadliest in California history. The agreement doesn’t affect any of the suits filed by individual homeowners and businesses against the San Francisco company, owner of California’s largest utility, and it must be approved by the judge overseeing the firm’s bankruptcy case. The settlement covers the 2015 Butte Fire, the devastating 2017 Wine Country fires and last year’s Camp Fire, which killed 85 people. More than half of the total settlement amount — $582 million — would pay for Camp Fire damages, with Paradise receiving $270 million and its parks and recreation district getting $47.5 million. Butte County would receive $252 million, while Yuba County would get $12.5 million.

Retrieval-Masters Creditors Bureau Inc., whose business was blamed for a large-scale data breach that affected millions of Quest Diagnostics Inc. customers, filed for chapter 11 protection, citing fallout from the security issue, Bloomberg News reported. The company, which collects patient receivables for medical labs under the name American Medical Collection Agency, listed assets and liabilities of as much as $10 million in its bankruptcy petition filed in the Southern District of New York. It’s aiming to liquidate, the company said. Court documents cited a breach discovered in March that affected millions of people, including customers of Quest Diagnostics and Laboratory Corporation of America. Soon after, Quest, LabCorp, Conduent Inc. and CareCentrix Inc. -- American Medical’s four largest clients -- stopped doing business with the company, leading to the bankruptcy filing, according to court papers.

Power producers NextEra Inc., Consolidated Edison Inc. and Calpine Corp. on Thursday said that they will appeal to try to overturn a recent decision by a judge that a federal regulator has no say in whether utility PG&E Corp. may reject its power purchase agreements if it chooses to while in bankruptcy, Reuters reported. PG&E’s power purchase agreements are valued at up to $42 billion and the matter of whether the company can walk away from them belongs exclusively in bankruptcy court, Judge Dennis Montali of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in San Francisco said in a June 7 decision. Judge Montali, who is overseeing PG&E’s bankruptcy, rejected the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s argument that it has “concurrent jurisdiction” over the agreements. The dispute involving the regulator, PG&E and companies from which it buys power has been one the most contentious fights so far in the San Francisco-headquartered utility’s bankruptcy, launched in January. PG&E sought chapter 11 protection expecting billions of dollars in liabilities stemming from devastating California wildfires in recent years traced to its equipment.

More than 265 people have come forward since March to file confidential claims seeking damages for childhood sexual abuse by priests and other Catholic clergy members as part of the ongoing chapter 11 bankruptcy case filed by the archdiocese of Santa Fe. The number could easily top 300 by Monday’s deadline for filing claims in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New Mexico, the Albuquerque Journal reported. To stem the financial drain from clergy child sex abuse lawsuits, the archdiocese filed for chapter 11 reorganization in December and disclosed on its website that nearly 300 claims from survivors had already been settled through mediation over the past 25 years. At the time of the bankruptcy filing, the archdiocese was facing about three dozen lawsuits or claims from survivors. Archbishop of Santa Fe John C. Wester said that insurance has paid a substantial portion of settlements in the past but that the bankruptcy filing would help ensure a “global resolution” so all claims of child abuse survivors can be settled “fairly and equitably.”