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The chaos at Toshiba, the Japanese corporate giant, deepened today with its chairman resigning and the company saying that it would book a $6.3 billion loss related to its U.S. nuclear business, the Washington Post reported. Analysts are now speculating about the possibility that Toshiba, which employs almost 200,000 people in Japan and has significant investments in the United States, will have to file for bankruptcy. Toshiba executives were due to deliver the company’s quarterly earnings announcement Tuesday — the deadline for the Tokyo Stock Exchange rule to report earnings within 45 days — but they failed to show up. Instead, the company said that it was “not ready” to make the announcement and asked for another month to file. Then, after the stock market had closed, Toshiba said that it would take a $6.3 billion hit related to Westinghouse’s acquisition in December of Stone & Webster, a nuclear construction business, from Chicago Bridge & Iron in December. Shigenori Shiga, its chairman, would step down tomorrow to take responsibility for the losses, the company said. Toshiba, which bought a majority stake in Pennsylvania-based nuclear power company Westinghouse in 2006, earlier said that it had received internal information late last month about irregularities during the acquisition. It had learned that controls at Westinghouse had been “insufficient” and that the company had used “inappropriate pressure” to make the acquisition.

Judges in Delaware and Canada yesterday approved a plan to pay more than $7 billion to creditors of Nortel Networks, ending years of litigation over the former telecommunications company that filed for bankruptcy in 2009, Reuters reported. The rulings by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross in Wilmington, Delaware and Frank Newbould of the Superior Court of Justice in Toronto ends one of the longest and most expensive chapter 11 cases, marked by battles over funds raised by the company's liquidation. The coordinated ruling yesterday will allow repayment of vendors, retirees in Canada, government agencies and investment funds later this year.

AtopTech Inc., the once-promising vendor of place-and-route electronic design automation (EDA) software, announced that it filed for chapter 11 protection and expects to be sold after losing a long-running legal battle with leading EDA vendor Synopsys Inc., EE Times reported on Friday. ATopTech, which is privately held, announced that it filed a motion with the bankruptcy court to sell its business and has selected a stalking-horse bidder. It said that it expects a bankruptcy auction to take place in mid-March and that the sale will be completed by March 31. The company said that it expects to continue to manage and operate its business under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware until the sale.

A U.S. bankruptcy court judge granted Avaya Inc. approval on Friday to tap $425 million of the $725 million loan proposed to carry the telecommunications company through its restructuring, funds the company said were essential to continue operations, Reuters reported. Avaya filed for chapter 11 protection on Thursday to cut its debt of about $6 billion after efforts to sell its call center business and reach a consensual deal with creditors failed. The company's lawyers said a significant portion of the $725 million loan, extended by an affiliate of Citigroup Inc. for up to a year, was funded by Avaya's existing lenders. Avaya plans to return to bankruptcy court today for approval on other expenses.