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A Portuguese court approved on Friday a debt restructuring plan that was passed by creditors in major Brazilian telecom firm Oi SA, marking a step forward in the company’s tortured bankruptcy recovery process, Reuters reported. With the court’s approval, seen by Reuters, bankruptcy courts in all relevant jurisdictions — Brazil, the U.S., the Netherlands, and now Portugal — have signed off on the recovery plan, which was approved by creditors in December. In late July, Oi completed a debt-for-equity swap in which several hedge funds swapped billions of dollars in debt for fresh equity in the reorganized firm. The company, Brazil’s largest fixed-line telecom player, expects to receive a 4 billion-real ($1.1 billion) capital injection in early 2019 to help it boost capital expenditures and shore up its debt profile. Oi is not out of the woods yet, however. Earlier in October, a Brazilian court cleared the way for arbitration talks between Oi and shareholder Pharol SGPS SA overseen by Brazil’s B3 SA stock exchange operator.

The attorneys and consultants who have grown with the technology industry’s failures, from Pets.com to Pebble, are anything but harsh in assessing their “clients,” the Guardian reported. Martin Pichinson is a former music manager who came to Silicon Valley in the mid-1980s and his business partner is Michael Maidy. Maidy was recently the CEO of another failed tech company: Pebble Tech LLC, maker of smartwatches. Pichinson and Maidy co-founded Sherwood Partners, and their company is the premier specialist in “assignment for the benefit of creditors” (ABC). ABC was how smartwatch company Pebble Tech came into existence: it was, for its brief life, simply a collection of Pebble’s remaining assets, to be distributed among various creditors, employees and shareholders. This was also how Maidy briefly became the figurehead of a zombie version of the once-hip startup. It’s all part of the normal business churn in Silicon Valley, all built around the mantra of helping companies “fail better.”

Facebook users who say that their personal data was misused, potentially to distort the last U.S. election, must wait to see if they can wring more information from Cambridge Analytica, Bloomberg News reported. The political consulting firm is winding down in both Britain, its home country, and in a chapter 7 bankruptcy case New York. Some of the dozens of Facebook users who sued both Facebook and Cambridge Analytica in U.S. district court appeared in the bankruptcy as "data breach plaintiffs" to ask if they can gather more information about the defunct company's finances.Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane said in court yesterday that they'll have to wait until September to hear his answer, when it is hoped that more information will become clear. Meanwhile, he entered an order in their favor to preserve any records. His back and forth with lawyers revealed how difficult it will be to get any financial compensation — or even information — from the firm.

Facebook has joined a growing race among big technology companies seeking private information once regarded as off-limits: users' checking-account balances, recent credit card transactions and other facts of their personal finances and everyday lives, according to a Washington Post commentary. Facebook said that the data would not be shared with marketers or used for ad-targeting purposes, and no major U.S. financial institutions have announced that they’re interested in a joint arrangement. But a company representative said several unnamed banks and credit card companies have voiced interest in teaming up with the social network, even proposing their own potential deals. But Facebook’s past scandals over data privacy have left industry and privacy experts wondering how the more than 1 billion Facebook Messenger users might react to the company wanting to link their social media profiles with their private finances and spending histories. Facebook said that the banking information wouldn’t be included in the vast stores of information the site uses to build people’s personality profiles.

Brazilian telephone carrier Oi SA said yesterday that a judge in Lisbon had decided against validating the company’s restructuring plan in Portugal for now, adding that the decision will not keep the plan from going into effect, Reuters reported. In a securities filing, Oi said that a judge determined that there are outstanding appeals related to the firm’s restructuring of 65 billion reais ($17.4 billion) in debt that must be resolved before the Portuguese court signs off on the plan. Oi added that the decision was rooted in formalities, not on the merits of the restructuring plan, which was approved by the company’s creditors in December. The firm also said that it would appeal the decision.