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The U.S. Department of Justice’s bankruptcy watchdog is opposing a request to add more trade creditors to a committee in the National Rifle Association’s chapter 11 case, saying the organization has said it expects to pay its creditors in full, Reuters reported. U.S. Trustee William Neary said in an objection filed on Sunday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Texas that the unsecured creditors’ committee it appointed earlier in the NRA’s chapter 11 case adequately represents all types of unsecured creditors. Neary urged U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Harlin Hale to reject the motion from creditor Membership Marketing Partners LLC, which was filed last week.

The Justice Department’s bankruptcy monitor wants the National Rifle Association’s go-to lawyers barred from representing the gun-rights group in its chapter 11 case, citing “disqualifying conflicts” and previous allegations of billing improprieties, the Wall Street Journal reported. Brewer Attorneys & Counselors, a law firm that has represented the NRA in court and administrative proceedings across the country, isn’t suitable to be part of the crew of court-supervised lawyers handling the gun group’s bankruptcy, according to a Tuesday court filing by the U.S. Trustee, which oversees bankruptcy courts for the U.S. government. In addition to the NRA itself, the Brewer firm has also represented Wayne LaPierre, the group’s chief executive officer and a prime target of litigation brought by New York’s attorney general alleging rampant financial misdeeds. LaPierre is now separately represented, according to an NRA spokesman. But the prior relationship between LaPierre and the Brewer firm makes it “highly unlikely” that as the NRA’s counsel the Brewer firm would look into or advocate for any claims the group may have against him, the U.S. Trustee said. “The statements in this legal filing, like others, reflect a misinformed view of the Brewer firm, its billings and its advocacy for the NRA,” said Charles L. Cotton, first vice president of the NRA. “I, and all the officers, fully support the work the firm is doing, the results achieved, and the value of its services. As we have stated before, this relationship has been reviewed, vetted and approved,” he said.

The New York attorney general called for the dismissal of the National Rifle Association’s bankruptcy, alleging it was filed to escape state oversight, Bloomberg News reported. The case is improper because the NRA has openly stated that the gun rights organization is “in its strongest financial condition in years,” New York said in a filing on Friday in bankruptcy court in Texas. The chapter 11 was also brought in bad faith to avoid New York’s lawsuit seeking to dissolve it, the state said. The NRA is “essentially fleeing or seeking an end run around a pending regulatory enforcement action in New York,” the state said in the filing. The lawsuit filed last year by New York Attorney General Letitia James alleges the NRA diverted charitable donations for years to enrich the organization’s top executives in violation of laws governing nonprofits. The state in its filings also took aim at NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre, who it claims fleeced the gun rights organization. LaPierre has disputed New York’s allegations. LaPierre, who was among the signers of the group’s bankruptcy petition, “is accused of looting the NRA, yet he has made the determination and signed the petitions in an effort to use the bankruptcy court to remove the NRA from regulatory oversight,” the state said in its filings.

The law firms defending Purdue Pharma LP in probes into its OxyContin painkiller didn’t disclose an existing deal with Purdue’s owners to keep information shared between them confidential when the drugmaker filed for bankruptcy, the Wall Street Journal reported. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and WilmerHale received court permission in November 2019 to continue working for Purdue after it sought chapter 11 protection. But the firms’ nondisclosure of the agreement with the members of the Sackler family who own Purdue, and whose interests are at odds with company creditors, skirted bankruptcy rules meant to reveal potential conflicts of interest, bankruptcy experts said. Earlier this week, Michael Quinn, a lawyer representing five people with wrongful death and personal injury claims against Purdue, questioned whether the 2018 defense agreement restricted what Skadden and WilmerHale could disclose to creditors as they have probed whether they can recover billions of dollars from the drugmaker’s owners. Even though the law firms have represented Purdue for years, they have additional obligations to company creditors while the company is in chapter 11. A separate committee of Purdue creditors has been probing the transfer of billions of dollars from Purdue to the Sacklers before the company filed bankruptcy, according to court documents. The committee is examining if these roughly $10 billion in transfers to the Sacklers can be recovered for the benefit of Purdue creditors, court papers say. Mr. Quinn said in his letter he is concerned that the obligation in the defense agreement to keep Sackler information confidential conflicted with Skadden’s and WilmerHale’s duties in bankruptcy to Purdue and its creditors. The Sacklers have consistently denied throughout the bankruptcy case that the transfers were improper and said more than half the money was used to pay taxes or invested in international ventures. However, they offered to cede control of Purdue and pay a $3 billion cash settlement to resolve creditor claims against them.