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Creditors of a defunct company that once ran a string of Getty gas stations have sued the men who bought the company for $1 from OAO Lukoil Holdings, accusing them of siphoning more than $6 million out of the "grossly insolvent" operation in less than a year, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Creditors are suing to reclaim the cash under laws that ban outsize payments to insiders by companies that are unable to pay their bills. Aaserod, who is generally described in news accounts as a Norwegian-born businessman and a financier, and his long-time business ally Karro, "purchased" the operations of Getty Petroleum Marketing Inc. from Russia's Lukoil in March 2011.

Bankrupt mortgage lender Residential Capital LLC has struck a deal with a class of bondholders to resolve the group's objection to its plan to exit bankruptcy, Reuters reported yesterday. In court papers filed yesterday, ResCap outlined a new exit plan which includes a $125 million payment to the bondholder group to settle its demands for millions of dollars in interest payments. Implementation of the plan would allow ResCap to begin paying back creditors who include owners of residential mortgage-backed securities that collapsed in the 2008 mortgage crisis. It would also allow former parent Ally Financial, which is now part-owned by U.S. taxpayers, to focus on repaying the federal government for a $17 billion bailout during the crisis. Ally had contributed $2.1 billion to fund recoveries for ResCap creditors, a cornerstone of the plan.

Charles Ergen knew that his relationship to Dish Network Corp. and EchoStar Corp. made it improper for him to buy up LightSquared Inc.’s debt, according to new allegations in a lawsuit filed against him, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Philip Falcone’s Harbinger Capital Partners hedge fund made the claims yesterday in an amended complaint in bankruptcy court. Ergen first looked into whether Dish could acquire LightSquared debt in the fall of 2011, and an investigation then concluded that Dish was prohibited from buying LightSquared debt because it was a competitor, according to the complaint.

The trustee liquidating failed New York law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP filed a $21.8 million complaint on Wednesday against two of the firm's leaders, former Executive Director Stephen DiCarmine and former Chief Financial Officer Joel Sanders, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. The complaint outlines a number of alleged financial irregularities at the firm — whose management is the focus of an ongoing criminal investigation — including $1.2 million loans to DiCarmine and Sanders. The suit seeks to claw back lavish compensation packages the pair received in the years leading up to Dewey's 2012 collapse.

Fisker Automotive Inc.'s creditors pounced Tuesday to preserve potential lawsuits targeting the U.S. Department of Energy's decision to shut off funding to the hybrid-car maker, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. The move came as Fisker sought preliminary court approval to tap a bankruptcy loan and move toward a sale of its operations to Hybrid Tech Group LLC. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross cleared the bankruptcy financing on an interim basis and set a Jan. 3 hearing date to review the sale of Fisker to Hybrid Tech. However, the judge said he will hear from an official committee of unsecured creditors once that panel is formed before making any final decisions.

U.S. District Judge James Moody yesterday approved an estimated $85 million class-action settlement of a suit in which trucking customers alleged Pilot Flying J, the largest truck-stop chain in North America, defrauded them over several years through a diesel-rebate program, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported yesterday. The settlement, which is between Pilot and plaintiffs in 10 of about 20 pending lawsuits against it, requires the company to have auditors examine its trucking accounts and pay any money owed, in addition to 6 percent in annualized interest.

Dish Network Inc. shareholders are asking a Nevada judge to exclude the company’s chairman and controlling shareholder, Charlie Ergen, from the bankruptcy court auction of LightSquared Inc., Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Ergen, who privately bought $1 billion in LightSquared debt, has a conflict of interest, and Dish’s $2.22 billion bid for LightSquared’s wireless spectrum should be overseen by an independent committee, lawyers for the shareholders argued at a hearing yesterday. The Jacksonville Police and Fire Pension Fund said in a complaint brought on behalf of the satellite-television provider against the board of directors that Ergen’s private purchase of LightSquared’s debt conflicts with Dish’s strategic interests in the company’s assets, and that a “corporate governance breakdown” at the company had ensued. The pension fund said that Dish had created a two-person special committee to protect it from a “blatant conflict of interest” between the company, which seeks to buy spectrum as part of its business strategy, and Ergen, who “secretly made himself LightSquared’s largest creditor” by buying its debt from around the time of its bankruptcy filing in May 2012.

The owner of Major League Baseball’s Houston Astros sued former owner Drayton McLane Jr. and Comcast Corp., claiming that he was misled about the value of the regional sports network that televises the team’s games, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Houston Baseball Partners LLC, led by Jim Crane, filed the lawsuit Nov. 21 in state court in Houston. The company said that it paid $615 million for the team and its 40 percent stake in Houston Regional Sports Network LP in November 2011 “based on knowing misrepresentations” McLane gave him concerning the network’s value. Creditors including affiliates of Philadelphia-based Comcast filed an involuntary chapter 11 bankruptcy petition against the network on Sept. 27 “to avoid the destruction of the network’s substantial value,” according to court filings. The network is owned by Comcast, the Astros and the National Basketball Association’s Houston Rockets. Comcast, the biggest U.S. cable operator, claimed it’s owed more than $100 million and the network hasn’t been paying its debts as they come due.

Two more firms that hired partners from Howrey amid its 2011 collapse have settled with the now-defunct firm's bankruptcy trustee, who has pushed aggressively to recover money for the Howrey estate under the so-called unfinished business doctrine, Am Law Daily reported on Friday. In the latest round of settlements, Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft has agreed to pay the Howrey estate at least $600,000, and Washington, D.C.–area firm Ober Kaler has settled for an undisclosed amount. Both deals require the approval of Bankruptcy Judge Dennis Montali. The Cadwalader settlement is tied to seven litigation matters the firm took on when it hired former Howrey antitrust partners Peter Moll and Brian Wallach, according to a Thursday court filing. Relying on the unfinished business doctrine, trustee Allan Diamond claims the bankruptcy estate has an ownership right to those matters and deserves a portion of the money they generated.

Jon Corzine and other ex-managers of bankrupt MF Global Inc. are appealing a court ruling calling for 100 percent repayment of customers of the failed brokerage, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. A notice of appeal was filed in bankruptcy court on Tuesday by Corzine, the ex-New Jersey governor and onetime Goldman Sachs Group Inc. co-chairman, and by managers targeted in a lawsuit including senior executives Bradley Abelow and Henri Steenkamp. They are challenging a Nov. 5 ruling by Bankruptcy Judge Martin Glenn that would allow all missing customer funds to be returned by the end of the year. MF Global Holdings Ltd., the brokerage’s parent company, filed for bankruptcy on Oct. 31, 2011, after a failed $6.3 billion bet on bonds of some of Europe’s most indebted nations. The company listed assets of $41 billion and debts of $39.7 billion. More than $1.6 billion in customer funds that should have been segregated were missing.