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Dish Network Corp. Chairman Charles Ergen said that by late 2011 his company didn’t consider LightSquared Inc. an attractive acquisition, while he remained interested in investing personally, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Ergen, testifying yesterday in bankruptcy court, is accused of secretly accumulating $1 billion in LightSquared debt so he could control the broadband services provider’s reorganization and use its wireless spectrum to help Dish expand into wireless. LightSquared, controlled by Philip Falcone’s Harbinger Capital Partners LLC, sued Ergen and Dish in August seeking to disallow the $1 billion claim. Ergen, who last week sought to drop his bid for some of the company’s airwaves, said yesterday that he saw LightSquared as an opportunity for himself, not Dish.

A federal appeals court ruled that two former investors with Bernard Madoff cannot pursue claims against the estate of a Florida businessman who was one of the convicted swindler's biggest clients, Reuters reported yesterday. The decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit is a victory for Irving Picard, the trustee liquidating Madoff's firm, in a battle over his authority to reach settlements on behalf of victims of Madoff's Ponzi scheme. Picard reached a $7.2 billion settlement with the estate of Jeffry Picower in 2010, the largest such settlement on behalf of victims of Madoff's Ponzi scheme. The trustee has said that Picower, who drowned in 2009, knew or should have known that Madoff was operating a fraud. About $5 billion was to go to the estate of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC and $2.2 billion was to be forfeited to the U.S. government. Picower's widow at the time said she "absolutely confident" her husband was not complicit.

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.

Attorneys working to settle litigation over a deadly fungal meningitis outbreak say they hope to finalize a tentative $100 million-plus deal and present it for court approval in the next two months, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. The New England pharmacy, which faces litigation related to the outbreak, last month tentatively agreed to create a fund to pay more than $100 million victims and their families. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 64 people have died and about 700 others have fallen ill as a result of the outbreak. “It’s the trustee’s goal to file a motion with the bankruptcy court to have those settlements approved in the next 30 days or so,” said Michael Gottfried, who is representing the pharmacy’s bankruptcy trustee, Paul Moore. “A hearing might be scheduled on that 30 days or so after he files the motion.” The pharmacy, New England Compounding Pharmacy Inc., filed for chapter 11 protection in December 2012 after the CDC identified it as the origin of the tainted steroid injections that caused the outbreak.

A bankruptcy judge on Dec. 23 approved a motion allowing the Washington, D.C.-based Community Education Group, which provides AIDS-related services aimed at minority communities, to buy the legal rights to nine names linked to the National Association of People with AIDS (NAPWA), the Washington Blade reported yesterday. Additionally, Bankruptcy Judge Paul Mannes directed the national group AIDS United, which opposes CEG’s purchase of at least one of the NAPWA-related names, to submit draft language for his final order clarifying the extent of the legal rights CEG would have for those names. Mannes was expected to make the final decision on what the order will say within the next week or two. With more than $750,000 owed to creditors, NAPWA shut its doors in February 2013 after filing for chapter 7 bankruptcy.

A bankruptcy judge yesterday approved a settlement that allows Peregrine Financial Group to avoid dueling legal claims over its collapse and ensures that any litigation proceeds wind up in the hands of the brokerage's customers and creditors, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Bankruptcy Judge Carol A. Doyle signed off on the deal struck last month between the official overseeing Peregrine's liquidation, trustee Ira Bodenstein, and Peregrine's customers. Under the settlement, Bodenstein will stand down in a battle over litigation and will allow Peregrine's customers and creditors to take the lead in pursuing any legal claims Peregrine may have against Peregrine's former president, Russell Wasendorf Jr., related to his father's "misappropriation of customer funds" from Peregrine.

A former private wealth adviser for a unit of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc can keep a lucrative signing bonus he received from the firm three years before it collapsed, a securities arbitration panel has ruled, Reuters reported yesterday. Lehman lost its bid to recoup $1.8 million from William Gourd, who joined the firm in early 2005, according to a ruling this week by a Financial Industry Regulatory Authority arbitration panel. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. has been pursuing roughly 50 of its former licensed securities professionals to return portions of the bonuses they received when hired.

A federal bankruptcy judge granted the Rockets permission yesterday to continue negotiating on behalf of Comcast SportsNet Houston and set Feb. 4 to hear arguments on the Houston Astros’ motion to dismiss an involuntary chapter 11 bankruptcy petition filed against the network last September, the Houston Chronicle reported yesterday. Bankruptcy Judge Marvin Isgur also provided a clearly worded signal indicating that if the Astros-Rockets-Comcast partnership enters bankruptcy, he favors eliminating a controversial clause that requires all three partners to agree on significant decisions. Judge Isgur agreed to extend until next month the Rockets’ power to seek new business for CSNH but also lifted a stay on two undecided motions in the case, the more significant of which is the Astros’ motion to dismiss the involuntary bankruptcy proceeding.

Sixt Rent-a-Car LLC is appealing Advantage Rent a Car's sale to Catalyst Capital Group Inc. after arguing that it should have won the bidding at last month's auction, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Sixt, a unit of German car-rental chain Sixt SE, on Friday said that it was appealing the bankruptcy court order clearing Advantage's sale to Catalyst, court papers show. Advantage, whose spin-off from Hertz Global Holdings Inc. was completed last year, filed for chapter 11 protection in November after negotiating financing and sale agreements with Catalyst, a Canadian private equity firm.

A section of LightSquared Inc. lenders are opposing the company's decision to seek a new financing arrangement as part of its plan to exit bankruptcy, Reuters reported today. LightSquared in December proposed a new bankruptcy exit plan with financing from Fortress Investment Group and other backers, as the U.S. wireless communications company seeks to avoid a sale to highest bidder Dish Network Corp. The new plan replaced one based on an auction of the company's assets. LightSquared scrapped that sale after Dish emerged as the only qualified bidder, with a $2.2 billion offer and terms that LightSquared found unappealing. LightSquared had asked to be allowed to implement the new plan without going back to creditors to get their approval, saying that the latest deal increases the recovery for creditors. However, lenders including US Bank and MAST Capital Management said yesterday that the new arrangement violates an earlier deal, which prohibited LightSquared from seeking alternative financing unless the creditors were first paid in full.