%1

Edison International is firing back in a battle with its Edison Mission unit over an investigation into whether the power company siphoned off value from the subsidiary ahead of its bankruptcy filing, Dow Jones Newswires reported on Friday. Edison International said in court papers filed on Thursday that it has been "exceedingly cooperative" with an investigation into its relationship with Edison Mission, turning over tens of thousands of documents so far. The documents that it doesn’t have, and which Edison Mission and its creditors want to force the parent to turn over, should be subject to continuing negotiations, Edison International said.

A judge should appoint a broad committee of victims of the recent deadly train explosion in Quebec to resolve a split among claimants in the railway operator's U.S. chapter 11 bankruptcy, according to a U.S. bankruptcy watchdog, Reuters reported yesterday. A flurry of lawsuits have been filed in the wake of the devastating blast in Lac-Megantic, and victims have clashed over the best way to press their claims against Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway Ltd. An MMA train loaded with crude oil derailed and exploded in the town on July 6, killing 47 and causing widespread property and environmental damage. A month later, the company filed for bankruptcy in Bangor, Maine. The U.S. Trustee, a Department of Justice official who oversees bankruptcy cases, asked the bankruptcy court to appoint a broad committee covering property owners, government entities and those killed or hurt. "No victim should be excluded from representation," he said in papers filed by William Harrington, the U.S. Trustee in Portland, Maine.

Montana revenue authorities are trying to block former billionaire Tim Blixseth from collecting $3.3 million in attorney fees that he’s claiming from the state’s frustrated efforts to force him into bankruptcy, the Associated Press reported yesterday. Officials said yesterday that Blixseth should be barred from pursuing the fees while they appeal a July ruling that dismissed the forced bankruptcy case. The state has alleged that the founder of Montana’s ultra-exclusive Yellowstone Club owes $57 million in back taxes. If Blixseth goes into bankruptcy and the tax claim holds up, he could be forced to liquidate his assets. Blixseth, a resident of Washington state, has twice gotten the case dismissed by a now-retired federal judge. That allowed him to seek attorney fees against the plaintiffs in the case under federal bankruptcy law. In addition to the state, Blixseth also wants to recover the fees from the Yellowstone Club Liquidating Trust, a group of creditors that sided with the state as part of the creditors’ efforts to collect on a $41 million judgment against Blixseth in the club’s 2008 bankruptcy case.

Dish Network Corp. Chairman Charles Ergen asked a court to dismiss a lawsuit brought by Philip A. Falcone’s Harbinger Capital Partners LLC against him and an entity that are offering $2.22 billion in cash to buy LightSquared Inc. out of bankruptcy, saying that the suit is an attempt to derail his offer, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Harbinger sued Ergen and Dish in August, claiming that he’s fraudulently trying to take control of LightSquared, a broadband network services provider, by having an entity that he controls, SP Special Opportunities LLC, buy large amounts of its debt. Ergen and SP said in a motion to dismiss, filed yesterday in bankruptcy court, that they made no “false representations” about the purchases, so there was no fraud.

Jon Corzine, former chief executive officer of bankrupt MF Global Holdings Ltd., asked that a lawsuit against him by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission be dismissed, Bloomberg News reported today. The CFTC sued Corzine in June for failing to oversee the brokerage company properly while it spiraled toward failure in 2011 as $1.6 billion in customer funds went missing. After “exhaustive investigations lasting 19 months,” the CFTC hasn’t produced evidence to support its claims, Corzine said in a filing yesterday in federal court in New York. The CFTC’s complaint “relies on irrelevant allegations calculated to sully Mr. Corzine’s character, as well as rambling hindsight criticisms of complex management decisions, many of which were made during times of extreme stress,” Corzine said in the filing.

The unsecured creditors' committee of Personal Communications Devices LLC is asking a bankruptcy judge to toss the $105.3 million offer set to lead bidding at an auction for the wireless device supplier's assets, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. The offer's high value is "pure fiction," the committee said in court documents filed Friday, because only a small portion of it is cash, just enough to repay Personal Communications' $46 million bankruptcy loan and some transaction expenses. The rest of the value comes from assuming and refinancing two second-lien notes worth $25 million and $36.3 million respectively, the committee said.

During the final six months before its dissolution, Dewey & LeBoeuf billed $4.6 million in fees and expenses for work as special counsel to bankrupt American Airlines parent company AMR Corp., American Law Daily reported today. Now, AMR attorneys are trying to trim $644,000 off that bill, citing what they view as unnecessary diligence completed by a partner as he prepared to leave then-foundering Dewey, as well as overpriced FedEx bills and charges for first-year associates prohibited by a contract covering the assignment. In an eight-page objection filed on Sept. 5, AMR lays out the allegedly extraneous charges submitted by Dewey, which represented the airline in several litigation and antitrust matters unrelated to the bankruptcy. A hearing on the objections is scheduled for September 12.

MF Global employees fired after the broker's epic collapse will appeal a court ruling dismissing their allegations that they were not given proper notice of their terminations, Reuters reported on Friday. The employees said in court papers on Friday that they would appeal Bankruptcy Judge Martin Glenn's Aug. 23 decision. More than 1,000 workers were fired when the commodities broker, run by former New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine, filed a $40 billion bankruptcy on Oct. 31, 2011. In a class action, the employees said that they should have been given notice under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, which requires employers to give notice of mass layoffs. Judge Glenn twice rejected the lawsuit — once in October of 2012 and again last month — after giving the plaintiffs a chance to amend their case. In his latest ruling, Judge Glenn said that MF Global's broker-dealer unit, which employed the workers, was shut down not by the MF parent, but by the Securities Investor Protection Corp., which insures customers of failed brokers. The workers thus cannot hold MF Global liable for the decision, Judge Glenn said.

Edison Mission Energy and its creditors say that parent Edison International is blocking their probe into allegations that the parent orchestrated a value-grabbing scheme ahead of Edison Mission's bankruptcy filing, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Edison Mission and its unsecured creditors are urging a bankruptcy to force Edison International to cooperate with their investigation, arguing that its refusal to do so has "severely prejudiced" their efforts.

IBahn Corp., a provider of Internet services to hotels, sought bankruptcy protection in Delaware, citing a loss of contracts with largest customer Marriott International Inc. and patent litigation costs, Bloomberg News reported today. IBahn Chief Financial Officer Ryan Jonson said that the company had assets of $13.6 million and it listed liabilities of as much as $50 million in the chapter 11 filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., on Thursday. Salt Lake City-based IBahn said that it has appointed Edward Helvey as its new chief executive officer and that it will continue to operate as it restructures. The case is In re iBahn Corp., 13-12285. U.S. Bankruptcy Court District of Delaware (Wilmington).