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Insys Therapeutics Inc., the first drugmaker driven to bankruptcy by fallout from the opioid crisis, won court approval of a bankruptcy plan that pays less than a dime for each dollar it owes to the people, cities, states and tribes claiming damage from the drug epidemic, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Shareholders of the once-thriving company will be wiped out under the chapter 11 plan approved Thursday by Judge Kevin Gross in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del. Insys filed for chapter 11 protection in June, after reaching a deal with the U.S. Justice Department and seeing a raft of its former leaders convicted on federal racketeering charges. In bankruptcy, the company sold the rights to its flagship opioid, a form of the fentanyl painkiller called Subsys, and other pharmaceutical assets. OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP filed for bankruptcy in September. It is in better financial shape than Insys, and Purdue’s owners, the Sackler family, have offered to contribute $3 billion to pay off creditors, including the same cities, states and tribes that sued Insys and others involved in the opioid crisis.

Payless ShoeSource may have closed its last U.S. stores in June, but it's already planning a comeback, USA Today reported. The Topeka, Kansas-based company announced yesterday that it has emerged from chapter 11 bankruptcy for the second time. The footwear company says that it will have a focus on international markets and wants to reinvigorate its largest business unit, Latin America. Payless, which is still selling some of its shoes on Amazon.com, says that it will also relaunch its U.S. e-commerce site and open some physical stores in the U.S. Specific details, including a timeline, were not available. Payless filed for chapter 11 protection last February and shuttered its remaining 2,000-plus stores in North America by the end of June. The 62-year-old chain also filed for chapter 11 in 2017, cut debts and closed nearly 700 struggling stores. The latest bankruptcy filing didn’t affect its more than 710 franchises or stores in Latin America, Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

Suppliers that stocked the shelves during Sears Holdings Corp.’s bankruptcy are being forced to swallow losses and some employees won’t get severance they are owed, even as law firms are guaranteed full payment for their work on the retailer’s chapter 11 case, the Wall Street Journal reported. A year after the storied retailer sold its best stores and assets to ESL Investments Inc., the investment firm owned by former Sears Chief Executive Edward Lampert, the shell left behind in bankruptcy is struggling to pay its debts after racking up more than $200 million in bills from lawyers and advisers. White-shoe law firms Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, which represents unsecured creditors, and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, which represents the independent committee of Sears’s board, have earned more than $50 million. Akin Gump has access to another $25 million set aside to cover the cost of pursuing a speculative lawsuit against Lampert, which is billed as a way to return more money to Sears creditors. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain, who approved Sears’s liquidation plan last year, pushed vendors to settle for a maximum of 33 cents on the dollar, with the potential to recoup more if a potential lawsuit against Lampert yields more money.

The estate for the former operator of the Perkins and Marie Callender’s restaurant chains received court approval to pay creditors under a consensual bankruptcy liquidation plan, Bloomberg Law reported. The payments, with funds from $72 million in asset sale proceeds, would allow the company to wind down in chapter 11 bankruptcy. After a negotiated settlement, Pancakes & Pies LLC, the liquidating entity formerly known as Perkins & Marie Callender’s, plans to set up a recovery pool for general unsecured creditors, who are projected to recover roughly $1.8 million on $14 million in allowed claims.