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Families of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre have asked a judge to throw out InfoWars' bankruptcy, saying it was filed to avoid upcoming trials to determine damages in defamation cases the families have won against the right-wing website, Reuters reported. The families filed their motion on Tuesday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, where InfoWars founder Alex Jones placed three holding companies into chapter 11 on April 17. The bankruptcy came in the wake of court judgments that found conspiracy theorist Jones and his media businesses liable in multiple defamation lawsuits after he falsely claimed that the 2012 shooting in Newtown, Conn. that left 20 children and six school employees dead was a hoax. The families said in Tuesday's filing that the bankruptcy is "not typical chapter 11" and that the case has "no valid bankruptcy purpose" and should be dismissed with prejudice as a bad-faith filing. InfoWars attorney Kyung Lee of Parkins Lee & Rubio previously rejected attacks on the legitimacy of the case and argued that the bankruptcy is necessary to preserve the means to eventually pay damages in the defamation cases. The chapter 11 case was filed shortly before a trial to determine how much the families were owed in one of the lawsuits was scheduled to begin in Texas. It was put on hold as a result of the bankruptcy.

The top executive at McKinsey & Company, appearing on Wednesday for the first time before Congress to answer for the consulting firm’s role in fanning the opioid crisis, came under sharp criticism from Democratic lawmakers, the New York Times reported. Bob Sternfels, McKinsey’s managing partner, testifying remotely to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, apologized for McKinsey’s work in helping drive sales at opioid makers. He said that the firm “failed to recognize the broader context of what was going on in society around us.” But Mr. Sternfels did not cede ground on the main topic of the hearing: whether McKinsey’s simultaneously advising opioid makers and their regulator, the Food and Drug Administration, posed a conflict of interest. On that front, he insisted, McKinsey had been “transparent.” “McKinsey did not — did not — serve both the F.D.A. and Purdue on opioid-related matters,” Mr. Sternfels told the committee. “As both McKinsey and the F.D.A. have made clear, our work for the F.D.A. focused on administrative and operational topics including improvements to organizational structure, business processes and technology.” To some Democratic members, Mr. Sternfels’ words rang hollow. “Your apologies feel empty and insincere,” said Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.). McKinsey had worked with Purdue, Johnson & Johnson and other opioid makers to identify doctors who were heavy prescribers of painkillers, resulting in highly addictive drugs finding their way to some of the most vulnerable people in America. The work for Purdue began in 2004 and continued for 15 years as opioid-related deaths surged.

An Illinois-based trucking company has filed for chapter 11 protection, citing a jury award of $10 million in December after a 2019 fatal truck crash involving one of its drivers, Freight Waves reported. Joseph Keller, president of Marvin Keller Trucking, headquartered in Sullivan, Ill., filed the first of several emergency motions in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of Illinois on Friday, stating the bankruptcy filing is necessary to “avoid irreparable and immediate harm” to the carrier’s operations. In the filing, Keller wrote that the “substantial money judgment” against the trucking company, stemming from the jury verdict is the “main event” for the family-owned trucking company, founded by his father, Marvin Keller in 1965, to file chapter 11. “With an agreed forbearance on collection of the judgment about to expire, and the debtor [MKT] unable to pay the judgment amount, the debtor filed a voluntary petition under chapter 11 to maximize the potential recovery to its creditors and for the benefit of the other parties in interest including its employees,” according to the trucking company’s emergency motion. A hearing on Marvin Keller’s emergency motions is set for Wednesday.

A congressional investigation into global consultancy McKinsey & Co.’s role in advising its client on promoting opioid sales includes a look at “risk-management” processes that were overseen for a time by the current president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Bloomberg News reported. Thomas Barkin, who was chief risk officer at McKinsey from 2015 through 2017 before joining the Richmond Fed, has not been a direct focus of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform’s investigation. But an interim report released April 13 shows lawmakers are delving into the firm’s oversight of its engagement with Purdue Pharma LP, makers of the painkiller OxyContin. That scrutiny extends to possible failings of McKinsey’s internal risk-management processes, which Barkin oversaw for some of the years the inquiry covers, a person familiar with the investigation told Bloomberg News. The focus on risk management is further underlined in a letter on Nov. 5, 2021 written by the committee’s chair, New York Democrat Carolyn Maloney, seeking documents from McKinsey. The firm’s actions, she wrote, “point to possible systemic issues with McKinsey’s risk management and internal controls and raise serious questions about whether the company has taken sufficient steps to prevent or detect questionable conduct.” The committee will hold a public hearing into the consultancy firm’s role in the opioid epidemic on Wednesday in Washington.

Balfour Beatty Communities, one of the U.S. military's largest private landlords, continues placing the health of service members and their families at risk even after pleading guilty last year to defrauding the U.S. government and being levied a $65 million fine, a Senate investigation being released Tuesday found, Reuters reported. During their eight-month probe, Senate investigators said they found evidence of environmental hazards at two military housing communities, including mold, faulty gas furnaces, roofing leaks and asbestos concerns, according to the report released by the U.S. Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Senate staff also said that they unearthed inaccuracies in documentation of military housing maintenance by Balfour Beatty, like the earlier ones identified from 2013 to 2019 in a Department of Justice case that resulted in the company pleading guilty to defrauding the U.S. government last December. At the bases examined in the congressional probe — Army Fort Gordon in Georgia and Sheppard Air Force Base in Texas — Balfour Beatty’s housing management practices have continued to “put the health and safety of military families at risk,” the report said. On Monday, Balfour Beatty said in a statement that the company had not yet seen the Senate report and was unaware of any recent improper practices. The company has enacted a new incentive fee compliance program and new mold prevention procedures as well.

Advisers for bankrupt companies tied to far-right radio host Alex Jones shed light on the conspiracy theorist’s business operations in bankruptcy court Friday while promising transparency — and cash — to families of Sandy Hook shooting victims suing him for defamation, Bloomberg News reported. Three corporate entities linked to Jones, and his website Infowars, filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy this week in an attempt to corral yet-unquantified damages owed to Sandy Hook families who successfully sued him for calling the 2012 massacre a hoax. Jones himself didn’t go bankrupt, though, and neither did the most lucrative corner of his business, prompting one plaintiff’s attorney to call the maneuver a “ridiculous trick.” In the first hearing in the bankruptcy case Friday, advisers for the Infowars entities said their goal is to pay the families through a fair process free from the influence of Jones. The radio host gave up his control in the holding companies prior the bankruptcy and has agreed to fund a settlement trust to pay claimants and resolve the long-running defamation battle.

A restructuring officer for conspiracy site Infowars said Friday that representatives for its founder Alex Jones worried the radio-host would damage his brand and his ability to sell merchandise if he also joined his media assets in filing for bankruptcy, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. W. Mark Schwartz, an accountant tapped to serve as Infowars’ chief restructuring officer, said Friday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Victoria, Texas, that Mr. Jones is a prominent figure in the conspiracy theorist community and people working on the bankruptcy case worried that putting him in chapter 11 personally would hinder “his value to us in generating cash flow.” Those involved in preparing the chapter 11 filings were concerned that a bankruptcy filing by Mr. Jones could harm his name “and his ability to generate funds, sell merchandise to these people,” Mr. Shwartz said. Instead, only the properties that own the trademark and web-domain rights for Infowars were put in bankruptcy, which has already delayed a coming trial to establish damages against Mr. Jones for falsely claiming the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting was a hoax.

The judge presiding over the Boy Scouts of America bankruptcy has approved the organization's request to sell its warehouse and distribution center in North Carolina for roughly $13.5 million and lease back the property from the buyer, the Associated Press reported. The BSA wants to use some of the proceeds from the sale approved by the court Friday as part of its contribution to a proposed $2.6 billion fund to compensate tens of thousands of men who claim they were sexually abused as children while involved in Scouting. After a monthlong trial, Judge Laurie Selber Silverstein continues to weigh whether to approve the Boy Scouts’ reorganization plan. The Boy Scouts of America sought bankruptcy protection in February 2020 to stave off a flood of lawsuits alleging child sexual abuse by Scout leaders and volunteers over several decades. At the time, the BSA was facing about 275 filed lawsuits and was aware of roughly another 1,400 pending claims. But more than 82,200 abuse claims have been submitted in the bankruptcy. Attorneys for BSA insurers, including those that have since reached settlements and now support the plan, have said the sheer volume of claims is an indication of fraud and the result of aggressive client solicitation by attorneys and for-profit claims aggregators.