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Bankrupt Eastman Kodak Co. was sued by Japan's Kyocera Corp. for allegedly infringing more than a dozen U.S. patents with its printers and digital cameras, Bloomberg News reported on Friday. Kodak, based in Rochester, N.Y., will cause “irreparable harm” to Kyoto-based Kyocera if the infringement is not stopped, plaintiff’s lawyers said in a court complaint. Kyocera is seeking a jury trial and unspecified damages from Kodak, which has been trying to sell some of its own patents to pay creditors. Kodak sought bankruptcy protection in January 2012, citing $5.1 billion in assets and $6.75 billion in debt, as the transition to digital photography eroded the company’s film- based business.

Confusion over how much legal protection former Dewey & LeBoeuf partners are getting under a settlement with the defunct firm's estate may slow what Dewey advisers hoped would be the swift confirmation of the chapter 11 plan they have drawn up for repaying creditors who say they are owed some $600 million, Law.com reported today. A handful of dissenters raised objections to that plan at a hearing yesterday during which Bankruptcy Judge Martin Glenn asked his own questions about the document and an accompanying disclosure statement. Together, the two filings—which were submitted to the court in November—are intended to serve as a roadmap for how the Dewey estate plans to allocate funds to secured and unsecured creditors and other constituents. Judge Glenn urged Dewey's bankruptcy counsel from Togut, Segal & Segal to describe exactly who can still sue whom if the so-called partner contribution plan reached last year with some 400 partners is approved as part of the larger chapter 11 plan.

A Walt Disney Co. unit asked a federal judge to block a bankruptcy court ruling that would allow another company to sell patents related to three- dimensional movies, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Walt Disney Studios Motion Picture Production's rights to use the technology to convert traditional films into 3-D movies will be harmed, the company said in its appeal yesterday in U.S. District Court in Wilmington, Delaware. The dispute involves the shell company left in bankruptcy by the collapse of Digital Domain Media Group Inc., the provider of special effects for the movies “Transformers” and “Titanic.” That shell, known as DDMG Estate, held an auction for the patents last month that was won by RealD Inc. Disney claims it has the right to use the technology because of agreements it signed with the original patent holder in 2008 and 2009.

Distressed-debt investors owed $1.5 billion along with unsecured creditors are pleading with a bankruptcy judge to open the doors to competing restructuring plans for ATP Oil & Gas Corp., Dow Jones DBR Small Cap reported today. Investors in ATP's $1.5 billion second-lien debt say that they may want to propose their own reorganization plan but do not want to be "hostage" to a company that has already signed away control to top-ranking lenders.

Blackstone Group, which advised on the $2 billion sale of the Los Angeles Dodgers, won an order blocking subpoenas for information related to a divorce settlement dispute between former team owner Frank McCourt and his ex-wife Jamie McCourt, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Jamie McCourt, who claims her $131 million settlement is unfair, issued subpoenas that seek information related to valuation of assets, according to papers filed Nov. 5 in New York State Supreme Court. Justice Jeffrey K. Oing issued the order today at a hearing in Manhattan. The subpoenas over the team’s valuation are premature, Oing said. The subpoenas issued to Blackstone and senior managing director Peter Cohen, who worked on the Dodgers sale, are “vastly overbroad and seek materials that are completely irrelevant” to asset valuations, Blackstone said.

U.S. Trustee Roberta DeAngelis is objecting to the short timeline videogame company THQ Inc. is proposing for the sale of its assets, Dow Jones Newswires reported yesterday. In rules filed with the bankruptcy court, THQ proposed selling its assets during a Jan. 9 auction with bids due by Jan. 8. THQ filed for chapter 11 protection with an offer from Clearlake Capital Group LP worth roughly $60 million in cash, loan forgiveness and assumed liabilities. It named the offer from Clearlake as the lead bid. DeAngelis in an objection filed yesterday said that "the time table set forth in the Motion denies parties in interest an opportunity to effectively participate in the proposed sale process."

Bankruptcy Judge Robert Gerber could soon rule on whether the 2009 government-led restructuring of General Motors Co. improperly favored hedge funds, and an adverse ruling could cost the automaker nearly $1 billion, Reuters reported yesterday. Judge Gerber must decide whether a "lock-up agreement" in the restructuring sent $367 million to a group of hedge fund noteholders at the expense of other creditors. A trust representing unsecured creditors has sued to undo the lock-up agreement, arguing that it was a last-minute deal secretly folded into GM's bankruptcy to ensure the hedge funds' support. Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/03/gm-bankruptcy-lawsuit-idUSL1E…

In related news, General Motors U.S. sales rose 8.9 percent last month on a daily rate basis, giving the automaker its best December in five years, WardAuto.com reported yesterday. However, market share fell to an estimated 17.9 percent, its smallest portion of annual new-vehicle deliveries in the post-World War II era. GM delivered 245,733 cars and trucks in December, compared with 234,351 year-ago (26 selling days vs. 27 in December 2011). It closed the year with 2.6 million sales in its home market, 3.7 percent ahead of 2011 but trailing an industry up by double digits and reporting its biggest year-over-year gain since the eve of the Great Recession. Read more: http://m.wardsauto.com/sales-amp-marketing/gm-s-us-december-sales-rise-…

Creditors of A123 Systems Inc. are seeking to hire a lobbying firm in an attempt to stop political forces from derailing a $256.6 million sale deal, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported yesterday. The company's unsecured creditors' committee wants court permission to bring on Capitol Counsel LLC, whose professionals are "among the most seasoned lobbyists in Washington," according to the committee, as it seeks to ensure a sale that recently won a bankruptcy judge's blessing remains intact. A123, a government-backed battery maker that has yet to turn a profit, received court approval on Dec. 11 to sell most of its assets to China's Wanxiang America Corp. The proposed buyer beat out rival bidder and stalking horse Johnson Controls Inc. at auction, but the fight for the assets did not end there. The sale to Wanxiang remains subject to the approval of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a government body led by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner that reviews deals that could result in the control of a U.S. business by a foreign person or company.

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce has agreed to pay $149.5 million to the estate of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. to resolve litigation over a collateralized debt obligation tied to the bankruptcy of the former Wall Street bank, Reuters reported on Monday. The settlement resolves litigation that began on Sept. 14, 2010, when Lehman sued CIBC and dozens of others to recover more than $3 billion it said it had been deprived of due to its chapter 11 filing two years earlier. Lehman sought to hold CIBC responsible for much of the more than $1.3 billion due under an agreement requiring the Canadian bank to cover payment shortfalls tied to a large CDO transaction.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman persuaded a federal judge to decide a dispute with the Bernard Madoff brokerage trustee over distributing a $415 million settlement with a Ponzi scheme investor to victims of the fraud, Bloomberg News reported on Friday. U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff said that he was convinced the case, started in bankruptcy court by trustee Irving Picard, requires a ruling by a higher court "after carefully considering the parties' written submissions and oral argument," according to an order filed on Friday. Schneiderman in June agreed to settle a state lawsuit against the former Madoff investor, J. Ezra Merkin, by allotting most of the settlement money to investors in Merkin's hedge funds and the rest to the state. Picard responded by suing Schneiderman in bankruptcy court to stop him from completing the deal, saying that it obstructs his own efforts to collect $500 million from Merkin and his funds for a different group of investors.