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Hybrid Tech Holdings LLC is seeking to appeal a bankruptcy judge's ruling that capped its right to credit bid for the failed luxury hybrid automaker Fisker Automotive Inc. at $25 million, Bloomberg News reported today. The case should go directly to the U.S. Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, bypassing the U.S. District Court, to let Fisker's auction proceed efficiently next month and to ensure the appeal isn't mooted by a sale, Hybrid said in court papers filed on Monday. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross ruled on Jan. 17 that Hybrid's ability to use debt forgiveness to bid for the Anaheim, Calif., automaker's assets was properly limited at $25 million rather than the $75 million Hybrid proposed. The judge said a limit would promote competitive bidding that wouldn't otherwise occur if Hybrid was permitted to use the full amount of its claim. Judge Gross also cited questions over whether Hybrid's claim is fully secured.

Global Aviation Holdings Inc. won bankruptcy-court approval to sell itself to its lender, a unit of Cerberus Capital Management, subject to higher bids at a March auction, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Bankruptcy Judge Mary F. Walrath on Friday authorized Global Aviation to hold a March 19 auction, where the Cerberus unit will lead off the bidding. The Cerberus unit, Cerberus Business Finance LLC, is offering to sponsor Global Aviation's restructuring plan. If it wins the bidding, it will forgive at least some of the debt it holds in exchange for all of the new equity in the restructured charter airline operator. Court papers show would-be buyers' bids, due March 14, have to include at least $35 million in cash earmarked to repay Cerberus. The buyout firm is owed $39 million in pre-bankruptcy loan debt and also provided more than $50 million in bankruptcy financing to cover the costs of Global's chapter 11 case, its second in as many years. Judge Walrath will consider approving the winning bid at a March 25 sale hearing, according to court papers.

Less than three weeks into the going-out-of-business sales, five Loehmann’s locations have already closed completely, the Wall Street Journal reported today, and six more will lock up for the last time this Sunday. Loehmann’s also announced on its website that Monday, Jan. 20, was the last day it would honor store credits. Gift cards will be honored until Feb. 7. Loehmann’s Holdings Inc., the owner of the Loehmann’s retail stores, filed for chapter 11 protection in late December. Through the process, the company sold its merchandise to a group of liquidators, which is conducting the going-out-of-business sales. That sale was approved by the bankruptcy court on Jan. 7, and the going-out-of-business sales began on Jan. 9.

A takeover vehicle associated with Hong Kong billionaire Richard Li yesterday mounted an emergency appeal attacking a bankruptcy-court decision that put Fisker Automotive Inc. on the auction block, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Li's acquisition vehicle, Hybrid Tech Holdings LLC, is due to face off Feb. 12 against an affiliate of China's Wanxiang Group in a chapter 11 auction duel for the assets of Fisker, a failed luxury hybrid car maker.

Bankruptcy Judge Louis Kornreich formally on Thursday approved the Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway’s sale to Railroad Acquisition Holdings LLC, an affiliate of New York-based Fortress Investment Group. The decision came simultaneously with a Canadian bankruptcy court proceeding. The $15.85 million deal is expected to be closed by mid-March, said Robert Keach, the railroad company’s trustee in its bankruptcy proceedings. Railroad Acquisition Holdings began the bidding with a stalking-horse bid of $14.5 million. MM&A filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Bangor on Aug. 7, 2013, a month after one of its trains rolled driverless down a hill before derailing in the middle of the town of Lac-Megantic, Quebec, causing an explosion that killed 47 people on July 6, 2013.

The duel over Fisker Automotive Inc. continued to heat up yesterday, when a company connected to Hong Kong's Richard Li boosted its bid for the failed maker of luxury hybrid vehicles, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Li's takeover company, Hybrid Tech Holdings LLC, said that it would pay $55 million for Fisker, with only $25 million of the purchase price coming in the form of a credit bid or in an offer to cancel debt owed by Fisker to Hybrid Tech. The rest, $30 million, will be cash, Hybrid Tech's new offer says.

Dish Network Corp. Chairman Charles Ergen is set to defend his purchase of $1 billion in debt in bankrupt wireless provider LightSquared Inc. against claims by Philip Falcone that the investment was improper, Bloomberg News reported today. Falcone, whose Harbinger Capital Partners LLC controls LightSquared, has accused Ergen of surreptitiously buying the debt to hijack LightSquared’s reorganization and get control of the company’s airwaves. Ergen, who is scheduled to testify today before Bankruptcy Judge Shelley Chapman, has defended the debt purchases as a smart investment and said that he made no “false representations” in pursuing it. Falcone is seeking to disallow the $1 billion claim. He has proposed that he hold onto the Reston, Va.-based LightSquared, into which he has already sunk $3 billion. He may to testify later in the trial.

Several health care companies are interested in buying Poughkeepsie, N.Y.-based Saint Francis Hospital, which recently filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. ArchCare, a nonprofit health care organization affiliated with the Archdiocese of New York, and Westchester County Health Care Corp. both sent letters to a bankruptcy court indicating they will submit bids in an effort to purchase the hospital. The 333-bed facility is looking for bidders who can top the more-than $24 million offered by stalking-horse bidder Health Quest Systems Inc., which has promised to keep the 2,000-worker hospital open. An auction has been scheduled for Feb. 13, with a sale hearing to follow on Feb. 18.

Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross rejected a planned sale of Fisker Automotive to Hong Kong businessman Richard Li in favor of competitive bidding, opening the way for China's largest auto parts company to bid for the maker of the Karma plug-in hybrid sports car, Reuters reported on Friday. Judge Gross said on Friday that competitive bidding between a company affiliated with Li and a unit of auto parts maker Wanxiang Group of China was the best way forward. He scheduled a hearing for 2 p.m. today to decide how to proceed with an auction.

Dish Network Corp.’s motion to drop its $2.2 billion offer for airwaves owned by LightSquared Inc. became the focus of a trial over how Dish Chairman Charles Ergen bought debt in Philip Falcone’s bankrupt wireless broadband company, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Dish sent a termination letter just before a trial began yesterday bankruptcy court, where the satellite-television company and Ergen are accused of improperly acquiring the LightSquared debt. Lawyers for LightSquared told Bankruptcy Judge Shelley Chapman that Dish’s latest move may be a gambit to drive down the price of the assets. The lawyers said Ergen began stockpiling the debt in 2011, the year before LightSquared’s bankruptcy, and spent $800 million of his personal wealth, including money in his daughter’s trust fund.