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AMR Corp.'s American Airlines settled litigation with Sabre Holdings Inc., the flight data and reservation business that American spun off in 2000 and later accused of trying to crush competition from its former parent, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The companies renewed their current distribution agreement for multiple years, according to a jointly issued statement today. The airline will also receive an unspecified sum of money from Sabre. The settlement comes one week into the Fort Worth, Texas, state court jury trial of a lawsuit in which American claimed Sabre units doubled fees for displaying the airline’s data on its system, suppressed that data and organized a boycott to punish the carrier for trying to develop a new data and reservation system. The agreement also resolves federal claims between the companies.

The Dewey & LeBoeuf estate has begun to try to whittle away some of the thousands of claims asserted by aggrieved creditors hoping to recover at least a portion of what they say Dewey owes them, the American Law Daily reported today. To date, more than 2,100 proofs of claim have been filed against Dewey, which became the largest law firm in U.S. history to fail when it filed for chapter 11 protection on May 28. Those submitting the claims—which range from a low of $10 up to several million dollars—include vendors, former firm staffers, and landlords. Dewey’s advisers have said they believe that all told, the estate owes creditors $260 million in secured debt and $300 million $500 million more in unsecured claims. In a pair of filings made on October 26, the Dewey estate seeks to invalidate several dozen claims that they say are duplicative or were submitted after the September 7 deadline.

A federal judge on Monday handed partial victories to both the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, Wis., and the sex abuse victims who make up the vast majority of creditors in its bankruptcy, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported yesterday. The ruling, by U.S. District Judge Rudolph Randa, lets stand a February decision by Bankruptcy Judge Susan V. Kelley dismissing one victim's claim and allowing two others to move forward, at least for now. The three cases were seen as test cases in which the archdiocese argued that a significant number of victims of clergy sexual abuse had enough information on the church's handling of cases to have filed fraud claims years earlier, and that the statute of limitations expired before those victims stepped forward. It also sought to exclude cases that involve religious offenders, teachers and others it does not consider its employees, and cases where the victims received prior settlements.

The Office of the U.S. Trustee and private equity investor Palm Beach Capital say that Digital Domain Media Group is a corporate shell that is trying to sell what is left and pushing a settlement with unsecured creditors and top-ranking lenders, Dow Jones DBR Small Cap reported today. Once a prize-winning provider of special effects for movies such as "Titanic," Digital Domain collapsed on Sept. 11 and sold its operating business in a high-speed bankruptcy sale.

The financial professional who is chasing down money for energy investor Delta Petroleum Corp. has filed a lawsuit against investment banking firm Macquarie Capital USA Inc. to take back at least $1.1 million in payments for services that, according to the suit, the company did not need, Dow Jones DBR Small Cap reported today. According to the lawsuit filed on Thursday by John Young, Macquarie Capital should return the money and stop trying to draw another $8.7 million worth of "success fees" from transactions that the firm's advisers never helped with. Young was put in charge of recovering money for Delta Petroleum when it emerged from bankruptcy as a partner in a joint-venture group on Aug. 31.

CME Group Inc. plans next month to begin paying $2 million to former clients of Peregrine Financial Group, the failed futures brokerage looted for years by its now-jailed founder, Reuters reported yesterday. The payments will go to nearly 200 farmers, ranchers and cooperatives who traded on CME's exchanges. The payouts are CME's first from a fund it established in response to the collapse of MF Global last October, which left a $1.6 billion shortfall in customer funds and shook confidence in an industry where the safety of customer money had long been an article of faith.

Contractors rather than banks are entitled to receive a $100 million payout from the Fontainebleau Las Vegas bankruptcy case, the Nevada Supreme Court said in an opinion yesterday, VegasInc.com reported yesterday. Attorneys said that the opinion is significant for Nevada contracting companies because it gives them more protections in situations like those involving the $2.9 billion Fontainebleau, a casino resort that failed while still under construction in 2009. The failure left lenders, bondholders and contractors owed some $2.1 billion and caused hardships for some contractors that had their own bills to pay. With just $100 million available to pay Fontainebleau debts after the project was auctioned to investor Carl Icahn during its bankruptcy, court fights have been raging around the country over that money, as well as claims that Fontainebleau’s nonbankrupt developer misled lenders and is liable for their losses.

Peabody Energy Corp. and Arch Coal Inc. are being sued by mine workers who contend that the companies have an obligation to pay pension and health care benefits that were transferred to Patriot Coal in a 2007 spinoff, Reuters reported yesterday. Eight mine workers and their union, the United Mine Workers of America, are seeking class action status in a lawsuit filed yesterday. The roughly 10,000 union members whose benefits were transferred in the spinoff are worried that Patriot, in chapter 11 bankruptcy, will try to take advantage of laws allowing bankrupt companies to cut retiree health care and pensions. Some of the workers whose benefits were transferred retired before the spinoff and never actually worked for Patriot. Read more:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/25/patriot-lawsuit-idUSL1E8LOOXT…

In related news, the CEO of bankrupt Patriot Coal is stepping aside less than five months after taking the job, the Associated Press reported yesterday. Irl Engelhardt, a long-time executive at Peabody where he served as chairman and director of one of the world's largest coal producers, took over this year just weeks before the troubled Peabody spin-off sought bankruptcy protection. The company did not provide more details about the change at the top of the company, or about changes to corporate governance announced yesterday. Patriot named Bennett Hatfield to succeed Engelhardt. Read more:
http://news.yahoo.com/another-shift-top-patriot-coal-170854051--finance…

Lawyers for former MF Global Holdings Ltd. Chief Executive Jon Corzine are asking a federal judge to toss a civil fraud lawsuit accusing him of misleading investors about the risky bets the futures firm was taking before its collapse a year ago, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Corzine's lawyers blasted the investors' suit as a "jumble of assertions and accusations" that makes "no sense" that should be dismissed in a filing on Friday in U.S. District Court in New York. A group of banks and underwriters — among them units of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. — that are also being targeted by the investors joined Corzine in asking Judge Victor Marrero to throw out the lawsuit.

Marathon Asset Management LP, the hedge fund that called on American Airlines to broaden talks with creditors in its bankruptcy case, wants a court-ordered investigation into an inter-company debt deal at the airline, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. AMR Corp.'s American took on $2.26 billion in debt before last year's bankruptcy filing that regional carrier American Eagle owed under aircraft-financing agreements, Marathon said in a court filing yesterday. "The pre-petition transactions raise serious questions as to whether American Airlines received fair value in exchange for incurring the billions of dollars in debt and as to whether these transactions were otherwise improper," Marathon said.