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Cable operator Charter Communications Inc. told consumers to say goodbye to competitor Windstream Holdings Inc. when it filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2019. That farewell message could be costly following a bankruptcy judge’s ruling Thursday, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Judge Robert Drain of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in White Plains, N.Y., said that Charter, which operates under the Spectrum brand, must pay more than $19 million in damages for sending “literally false and intentionally misleading” mailers urging customers to switch telecom providers after Windstream filed for chapter 11. The legal fight highlights the ways companies can try to capitalize when a competitor files for bankruptcy, and the perils that can invite. Mailers that Charter sent to Windstream customers in March 2019 said they should switch to Spectrum “to ensure you are not left without vital Internet and TV services” because of the bankruptcy and told consumers to say “Goodbye, Windstream. Hello, Spectrum.” The ads were mailed in envelopes with a color strip mimicking the bright pink and purple color scheme Windstream had used in its own advertising, court papers said, a similarity that Windstream argued was meant to confuse its customers. Judge Drain agreed, ruling that Charter, which could appeal, used misleading advertising to attract Windstream customers and therefore violated the automatic stay, a legal shield forbidding businesses from meddling with customer deals when a competitor files for chapter 11 protection.

The Biden administration is preparing a massive spending proposal on infrastructure and other domestic priorities like child care and drug costs that could put fights over hot-button issues like climate change and taxes front and center, The Hill reported. A source familiar with the plans confirmed that administration officials are eyeing $3 trillion as the topline figure for its Build Back Better jobs and infrastructure proposal, though they cautioned talks are fluid and the final number could change. The sweeping package would constitute the White House’s follow-up to the $1.9 trillion economic relief measure signed into law earlier this month. The new package is expected to be split into two separate bills. The first would focus on infrastructure, with spending on manufacturing and climate change measures, broadband and 5G, and the nation’s roads and bridges. The other measure would include funds for pre-K programs, free community college tuition, child tax credits and health care subsidies, according to multiple reports.

The judge presiding over Intelsat SA’s bankruptcy case denied stockholders an official voice in how the satellite communications company’s $15 billion in debt is restructured, saying they couldn’t show a “substantial likelihood” that holders of equity stakes are entitled to a recovery, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Judge Keith L. Phillips of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Richmond, Va., declined to order the appointment of an official committee to represent shareholders, cover their legal fees from Intelsat’s coffers and give them more sway over restructuring talks. The judge said that there wasn’t a substantial likelihood that the Intelsat parent company, rather than a subsidiary, has first claim on nearly $5 billion in expected payments from the Federal Communications Commission. The interests of stockholders also are being advanced by other constituencies, including a group of convertible bondholders, making an equity committee unnecessary, the judge added. Only in rare instances do equity shareholders receive a recovery in corporate bankruptcies, usually only when the debt is paid in full and there is cash left over.

Video streaming company MobiTV Inc. filed for bankruptcy protection, and plans to look for a buyer while staying afloat with a $15.5 million loan from T-Mobile US Inc., WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The Emeryville, Calif.-based software company entered chapter 11 proceedings in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., with total assets of $19 million and liabilities of $75 million. The company’s roughly $25 million in secured debt is owed mostly to Ally Financial Inc., but T-Mobile also became a secured lender in recent months, providing MobiTV with roughly $5 million in bridge financing, according to court documents filed yesterday. MobiTV’s unsecured debts include about $9 million owed to bondholders, $15 million to trade creditors and $3 million under the federal Paycheck Protection Program. Major shareholders include Oak Investment Partners, which owns 44% of the common stock. Smaller equity owners include Hearst Communications Inc. and the U.S. Small Business Administration, records showed. As recently as 2019, MobiTV received $50 million in new funding from backers including Oak. MobiTV holds key contracts with T-Mobile and more than 120 cable and broadband TV providers to deliver streaming content to more than 300,000 subscribers.

Democrats begin the final push for President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus bill this week, dropping any pretense of bipartisanship to quickly pass the package before an earlier round of benefits runs out, Bloomberg News reported. The House plans to vote as soon as Friday on Democrats’ stimulus package, setting up a Senate vote as soon as next week. Resolving the final hurdles, especially disagreement among Senate Democrats about a provision phasing in a $15 per hour federal minimum wage, would clear the way for Biden to give his first address to a joint session of Congress in March outlining his next policy goals, including a multi-trillion dollar infrastructure bill. “The Senate is on track to send a robust $1.9 trillion package to the president’s desk before the March 14 expiration of unemployment insurance benefits” from the last round of stimulus, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a Friday letter to colleagues. “We will meet this deadline.” In public, the focus will be on the House this week with a Budget Committee vote Monday and a floor vote on the bill as soon as Friday. The content of the bill is mostly locked in — the Budget Committee isn’t even allowed to make substantive changes — and there’s no sign of a rebellion by the few remaining Democratic deficit hawks imperiling the bill on the floor. The real action will be behind closed doors in the Senate, where Democratic leaders are hammering out the changes needed to get all 50 Senate Democrats and independents on board. Biden initially sought some GOP support for his stimulus proposal, which includes $1,400 checks for individuals making less than $75,000, resources for vaccine distribution, funds for schools to reopen, and $400 per week in supplemental unemployment insurance. But Republicans said that the plan was too expensive, coming after last year’s $2 trillion and $900 billion virus-relief packages enacted in March and late December, respectively. 

Despite a last-minute pardon by former President Donald Trump in his criminal case, tech pioneer Anthony Levandowski's legal woes continue after he was forced to file for bankruptcy protection on the same day he was ordered to pay Google $179 million in a contract dispute last year, FreightWaves reported. Uber Technologies, Inc. is now taking issue with the proposed terms of his bankruptcy, claiming he used "legally dubious techniques to shelter his wealth from creditors," according to an Ars Technica article published earlier Thursday. "I continue to view many of the transactions in which Levandowski engaged immediately prior to the filing of this bankruptcy case with an incredibly jaundiced eye," U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Hannah Blumenstiel said on a phone conference last week, the news outlet reported. Levandowski filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on March 4, 2020, in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of California. Levandowski's attorney, Neel Chatterjee of Goodwin Proctor LLP, told FreightWaves at the time. He listed $50 million to $100 million in assets, compared with $100 million to $500 million in liabilities, according to the filing. Between 2016 and 2017, Levandowski received $127 million for his work on autonomous vehicle technology at Google. Uber claims in court filings that he "immediately put in motion an elaborate scheme to shield his assets from creditors."

Satellite operator Intelsat SA said on Friday it has filed a restructuring plan backed by some of its creditors, in a bid to reduce debt and emerge from bankruptcy in the second half of the year, Reuters reported. The plan aims to reduce debt by more than half to $7 billion and has the support of holders of about $3.8 billion of its debt, the company said. It has sought a hearing on Mar. 17 for a court approval to solicit votes on the plan. The company filed for chapter 11 protection in May last year, hit by the COVID-19 pandemic that inflicted widespread financial pain across sectors, including retail and aviation. Intelsat is one of the companies that will participate in the accelerated clearing of C-band spectrum under the Federal Communications Commission order to support a build-out of 5G wireless infrastructure in the United States.

Five years ago, Tom Markusic’s rocket company Firefly Space Systems filed for bankruptcy. This week, Tom Markusic’s rocket company Firefly Aerospace announced that it will aim for its first launch in mid-March, try to raise $350 million in capital and attempt a Moon landing on behalf of NASA in 2023, Bloomberg News reported. Based just outside of Austin, Tex., Firefly has been trying to carve out a unique path in the suddenly frenetic commercial space industry. The company does not make huge rockets like Elon Musk’s SpaceX, nor does it make small rockets like Peter Beck’s Rocket Lab, and a number of other start-ups. Its first rocket — called Alpha — can carry about 2,200 pounds of cargo into orbit for $15 million per flight, making it the space transport equivalent of a minivan in a landscape so far dominated by 18-wheelers and sedans. Whether or not Alpha can fly and do its job remains anyone’s guess. The first Alpha is currently being primed for takeoff at a pad located at Vandenberg Air Force Base, a little more than an hour northwest of Santa Barbara, California. The launch — months, arguably years, behind schedule — does finally seem ready to occur next month so long as the ever-fickle Rocket Gods feel generous. “This is the final push,” said Markusic, Firefly’s CEO. “We are all-in every day.” It’s a business miracle that Markusic, a veteran of NASA and SpaceX, is in the position to give Alpha a go. When the start-up he co-founded in 2014 went bankrupt two years later, it appeared that Firefly Space Systems would have its story end before it ever really began. Markusic, though, found a rescue plan in the form of Max Polyakov, a Ukrainian multi-millionaire who made his fortune in business software and a mix of gaming, dating and advertising web sites. Over the past few years, Polyakov has put $200 million into the rebranded Firefly Aerospace and ranks right alongside Musk and Jeff Bezos, who founded the rocket company Blue Origin, in terms of individuals who have sunk the most personal capital into space ventures.