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More than 60 people who have accused Hertz Corp. of having them wrongly arrested won the right to join a lawsuit against the company, dealing another blow to efforts by the rental car giant to keep the allegations bottled up in bankruptcy, Bloomberg News reported. Under a legal standard set by Bankruptcy Judge Mary Walrath, the customers can sue for false arrest instead of battling the company in bankruptcy court. With the latest court maneuvers, more than 120 people are actively suing Hertz outside of bankruptcy court, according to an emailed statement by victim advocates. About 320 people have come forward to accuse the company of having them falsely arrested, according to lawyers leading the lawsuits. Those renters claim Hertz routinely called the police on customers, sometimes over a payment dispute and in a few cases after the company lost track of a rental car. The company lost a key court battle in June when Judge Walrath allowed more than 70 customers to sue for false arrests. Until June, Hertz had successfully kept nearly all the false arrest claims locked inside its chapter 11 case, where juries are not allowed and where it’s difficult to win punitive damages against a corporation. As more claims move from bankruptcy jurisdiction to state courts, Hertz faces higher litigation costs and the prospect of big jury verdicts. The false arrest claims could cost Hertz hundreds of millions of dollars, according to advocates for those suing the company.

A lawyer for families of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook mass shooting on Thursday urged a Connecticut jury to hold conspiracy theorist Alex Jones accountable for building a “lie machine” that profited off of falsehoods about the tragedy, Reuters reported. The attorney, Chris Mattei, said during his closing arguments that Jones and his Infowars website encouraged legions of followers to harass and threaten Sandy Hook families with false claims that they were actors complicit in a government plot to seize guns. “He built a lie machine that put this stuff out,” Mattei said. “You reap what you sow.” Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems LLC, have already been found liable for defamation. The state court jury in Waterbury, Connecticut, is charged only with deciding how much they must pay for claiming the killing of 20 young children and six staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., was staged. During his closing arguments Thursday, Jones’ lawyer urged jurors to ignore the polarizing political undercurrents of the case and focus narrowly on the plaintiffs' actual losses.

Juul Labs Inc. is beginning talks regarding funding for a potential chapter 11 bankruptcy, Bloomberg News reported. The e-cigarette manufacturer has engaged in informal talks regarding debtor-in-possession financing and formal discussions with potential lenders are expected to progress in the coming days. Juul hired bankruptcy advisers Kirkland & Ellis and Alvarez & Marsal in June after the FDA banned Juul products on U.S. shelves, citing a lack of evidence demonstrating their overall safety. The company has been mulling a possible bankruptcy filing since then, along with pursuing various financing options, as previously reported by Bloomberg. The company won a court order temporarily blocking the FDA decision, and the agency separately stayed its ban, allowing the company to continue selling products. Juul has also faced hundreds of millions of dollars in damages from a barrage of lawsuits alleging it targeted minors. It has agreed to settle certain of those claims for more than $500 million, including through an agreement in principle with 33 states to resolve a two-year bipartisan probe into its marketing and sales practices.

A New Jersey bankruptcy judge on Tuesday paused consumer-protection lawsuits brought by New Mexico and Mississippi linking Johnson & Johnson's talc-based products to cancer, Dow Jones Newswires reported. Judge Michael Kaplan of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Trenton, N.J., agreed to extend the legal stay protecting J&J's bankrupt talc unit to the parent company, even though it isn't in chapter 11. Judge Kaplan ruled the talc subsidiary, LTL Management LLC, and its chapter 11 case would be irreparably harmed if the state attorneys general were allowed to move ahead with their lawsuits against J&J during the bankruptcy. The state lawsuits allege that J&J was aware that its talc-based products contained cancer-causing asbestos but refused to post a warning on its products, which the company denies. The accusations raised by New Mexico and Mississippi concern the central dispute in LTL's bankruptcy case and would disrupt it if they were allowed to move forward, Judge Kaplan said. The judge also indicated he wouldn't put the state lawsuits on hold indefinitely and would revisit his ruling in December. Although the pause will benefit J&J, Judge Kaplan said the benefits to the company are relatively small compared to the potential harm to LTL and its prospect for settling all talc-related claims against it in chapter 11.

The company behind Alex Jones' conspiracy site, Infowars, has picked a new chief restructuring officer to guide his business through chapter 11 after a bankruptcy judge rejected a prior pick over an undisclosed conflict, Dow Jones Newswires reported. Infowars parent Free Speech Systems LLC on Monday sought bankruptcy court permission to hire Patrick Magill as its new CRO. Mr. Magill is a licensed certified public accountant in retired status with more than 40 years experience assisting private and public companies, according to court documents. Infowars' founder Alex Jones signed an engagement agreement with Mr. Magill's firm on October 3, court papers say. Mr. Magill was selected weeks after U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez declined FSS' request to hire a different CRO and a lawyer because they failed to disclose their connections to a prior chapter 11 case involving different Infowars affiliates. Judge Lopez also ordered an independent trustee assigned to the chapter 11 case to conduct an investigation of Infowars. FSS said Monday that the trustee has indicated that she'd support appointment of Mr. Magill as the company's new CRO.

Far-right conspiracist Alex Jones is facing heightened scrutiny as the bankruptcy of his Infowars parent company reveals a complicated web of corporate entities tied to his family and associates, Bloomberg Law reported. Jones’ parents and sister control companies that are now looking to be paid as creditors of the bankrupt debtor, Free Speech Systems LLC. Other companies run by his personal trainer and an Infowars contributor also have supplier contracts with Free Speech that will be probed during the chapter 11 case. Jones and his company now owe about $50 million in defamation judgment—and possibly more in the future—to Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victim families for his lies that the 2012 shooting was a hoax. Those families, as unsecured creditors, have led the call to investigate whether Free Speech, through his family and friends, has established corporate structures that allow him to protect assets that could otherwise be used to pay the defamation judgment. A judge has ordered the bankruptcy trustee in the case to investigate the intra-family and other dealings that could hurt creditor payout. Future court rulings could wreak havoc on Jones’ quest to use bankruptcy to limit his liabilities.

Survivors of Guam clergy sexual assault are a step closer to obtaining compensation as a judge today is set to begin hearing arguments that would get the Archdiocese of Agana out of bankruptcy and pay claimants $34 million to $101 million, Pacific Daily News reported. “We’re almost at the finish line,” U.S. District Court of Guam Chief Judge Frances Tydingco-Gatewood, who’s been serving as bankruptcy judge in the archdiocese case, said on the first day of the hearing. The remaining concerns about the plan related to the Boy Scouts of America, among other things, are expected to be addressed, and the judge assured of a “reasonable, fair, expeditious” decision. If the judge confirms or approves the fifth amended joint reorganization plan this week, payments could start reaching survivors in “90 to 120 days,” according to attorney Robert Kugler of Minneapolis-based Stinson LLP, counsel for the creditors committee. Attorney Edwin Caldie, also representing the creditors committee, told the court about the 99.3% support to the joint plan by abuse survivors, referring to the 152 votes to “accept” it versus only one vote to “reject” it. There are more than 270 Guam clergy sex abuse claims from those who said they were raped or sexually molested by parish priests and others associated with the Guam Catholic church as minors.

Victims of Bernard Madoff’s massive Ponzi scheme will soon get another $372 million in payouts, bringing the total amount distributed from a government fund to more than $4 billion since the collapse of the fraudster’s company in 2008, Bloomberg News reported. The eighth payment so far from the U.S. Justice Department’s Madoff Victim Fund will go out to about 40,000 victims worldwide, and will increase the total recovery from all sources of compensation to 88% of losses, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan said Wednesday in a statement. The money was raised through government settlements with Madoff’s bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co., as well as some of his oldest customers, such as investor Jeffry Picower, who died in 2009, according to the statement. Madoff died last year in prison, where he was serving a 150-year prison term. “This office continues its historic work seeking justice for the victims of Madoff’s heinous crimes,” U.S. Attorney for Manhattan Damian Williams said in the statement. “But our work is not fully complete, and this Office’s tireless commitment to compensating the victims who suffered as a result of Madoff’s crimes continues.” The U.S. fund is separate from the repayment process being overseen by a trustee, Irving Picard, in federal bankruptcy court in Manhattan. His litigation against customers who profited from the scam has so far recovered more than $14.5 billion, most of which has already been returned to victims.

A New York bankruptcy judge on Wednesday approved Endo International PLC's request to hire a fiduciary in its chapter 11 case to represent the interests of future opioid claimants, Dow Jones Newswires reported. Bankruptcy Judge James Garrity Jr. approved the retention of attorney Roger Frankel to serve as future claims representative in the Endo chapter 11 case. Judge Garrity approved Mr. Frankel's retention after considering an objection by the Justice Department's bankruptcy watchdog which questioned whether other stakeholders in the case had a chance to propose other candidates. An Endo lawyer said yesterday that it had selected Mr. Frankel because of his extensive experience and only after considering more than a dozen other applicants. Mr. Frankel has served as a future claims representative in a number of large chapter 11 cases, including the bankruptcy of Mallinckrodt PLC which, like Endo, filed chapter 11 to resolve opioid-related liabilities.