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The losing bidder in a bankruptcy court auction for Atlantic City's former Revel Casino Hotel isn't ready to fold just yet, as an attorney for Florida developer Glenn Straub has filed an appeal in bankruptcy court to try and stop the sale of the Revel to Brookfield Asset Management, the Philadelphia Business Journal reported today. Revel's management chose Brookfield as the winner with a $110 million bid earlier in October. But Straub claimed that the auction was rife with improprieties. "We believe this entire auction was done improperly, from start to finish,” said Straub's attorney Stuart Moskovitz. Among the developer's main complaints was that Revel improperly accepted a bid from Brookfield after a specified deadline. He also claims that Revel's attorneys reneged on an agreement to share information with him on competing bids, and that the casino unjustly held six hours of closed-door meetings on what was supposed to be the first day of bidding.

Energy Future Holdings squared off against creditors in court on Friday as the bankrupt Texas power company sought approval to begin a multibillion dollar auction of its interest in Oncor, a power transmission business, Reuters reported on Friday. The company anticipates an auction in February, and sources told Reuters that potential bidders include NextEra Energy Inc. of Juno Beach, Fla., Hunt Consolidated Inc. of Dallas and Houston-based Centerpoint Energy Inc. Energy Future is not selling Oncor, but the right to own an 80 percent stake in Oncor, which operates the largest network of power lines in Texas and is closely watched by regulators. Creditors opposed the structure of the proposed auction because they said that it would lock the company into a reorganization that would provide billions of dollars of tax benefits for one group of senior lenders.

Farmers in Oklahoma and Texas who shipped more than $20 million worth of guar beans last year to the nation's only guar processing plant, which is now in bankruptcy, have struck a deal with the plant's majority owner, a New York hedge fund, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Under the deal, the farmers who agree to the plant's pending sale to an investment firm will recover about 75 cents on the dollar of what they're owed when the plant near Lubbock, Texas, leaves bankruptcy protection. Some farmers will also be able to split another $2.95 million.

The Delaware Supreme Court said on Friday that creditors are entitled to rely on formal loan documents authorized by secured lenders, even if there is a mistake in the documents, Reuters reported on Saturday. The court was responding to a question from a New York federal appeals court relating to a dispute between creditors of General Motors before its 2009 bankruptcy and its former lender, JPMorgan Chase & Co. The issue relates to GM's insolvency, in which its healthy assets were sold to the new General Motors Co, while the rest were liquidated for the benefit of unsecured creditors. GM's unsecured creditors' committee claimed that JPMorgan and other holders of a syndicated $1.5 billion term loan extinguished their lien on GM's assets, freeing up the assets to unsecured creditors. JPMorgan said neither it nor GM intended to nix the lien. "Parties in commerce are entitled to rely upon a filing authorized by a secured lender and assume that the secured lender intends the plain consequences of its filing," the court said in its opinion.

The bankrupt Trump Taj Mahal casino received court approval on Friday to break its labor agreement, a key condition for a rescue deal with billionaire Carl Icahn, and the union promptly announced a plan to picket the Atlantic City, N.J., hotel, Reuters reported yesterday. Parent company Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc. has said that trimming $14.6 million from its annual union pension and health care costs is key to saving the casino from becoming the fifth to close this year in the seaside resort. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross said during a hearing that he would approve the request and would explain his reasoning in a written opinion this week. The Unite Here Local 54 union will appeal the ruling, the union's lawyer, Kathy Krieger of the law firm James & Hoffman, told the court.

The trustee handling the 38 Studios’ bankruptcy case in Delaware is making his latest bid to recover money from the people and companies that did business with the failed Providence, R.I.-based video-game company, the Providence Journal reported today.
The complaint filed on Oct. 3 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware by trustee Jeoffrey Burtch said that lawyer Michael Corso should not have been paid $232,800 shortly before the company collapsed because 38 Studios “was insolvent on the date that such transfer was made.” The payment was just some of the money paid out to vendors in the waning days of the company’s existence. 38 Studios filed for federal bankruptcy in June 2012, just months after it released its first video game. The company never completed the more-complicated game, which underpinned a $75 million loan guarantee that the R.I. Economic Development Corp. gave it to move to Providence.

A North Carolina resin manufacturer and its affiliates that have been named in numerous asbestos lawsuits have filed for chapter 11 protection in order to address its current and future asbestos liability, the Washington Examiner reported yesterday. Reichhold Holdings US, Inc. voluntarily filed its petition for relief on Sept. 30 and is joined by affiliates Reichhold, Inc., Canadyne Corp. and Canadyne-Georgia Corp. The company announced that it has arranged $130 million in financing from its bondholders to fund continuing operations, of which $100 million will be available to Reichhold, Inc., in the form of debtor-in-possession financing if the court approves.

The team winding down Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. is accusing some of the nation's financial institutions of trying to freeze billions of dollars of Lehman cash earmarked for other creditors to "coerce" a favorable settlement in their fight with the failed investment bank over soured mortgage loans, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. In a bankruptcy court filing on Wednesday, lawyers for Lehman blasted the trustees responsible for some 255 individual residential mortgage-backed securities trusts that purchased mortgage loans from Lehman before the financial crisis. The trusts have said that Lehman needs to set aside $12.14 billion to settle claims over certain soured mortgage loans, more than double the amount that the failed investment bank has put aside for the dispute.

After a historic settlement in clergy sex abuse lawsuits in Minnesota, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, along with the Diocese of Winona, said that they were considering all options to pay for the settlement, including bankruptcy, WCCO.com reported yesterday. Experts say that if their insurance doesn’t step up to cover the payment of this settlement, it could be very likely they will file for bankruptcy. “You always have that trigger question, ‘Will the insurance cover everything that is being sought?'” said Charles Reid, a professor of law at the University of St. Thomas. Over the past decade, 11 dioceses across the country have filed for bankruptcy due to lawsuits.

Ailing battery maker Exide Technologies could be up for sale before Christmas if it can't come to terms with key creditors on a chapter 11 bankruptcy-exit plan, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Lenders have agreed to extend the maturity date on bankruptcy financing, but required Exide to agree to an "orderly sale process" if it can't finalize a plan-support agreement by Nov. 17, according to court papers filed on Monday.