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Triad Guaranty Inc. filed for chapter 11 protection yesterday after the mortgage insurer was hurt by higher insured losses on the back of weakness in the jobs and housing markets, Reuters reported today. Triad, which sells mortgage insurance to residential mortgage lenders, said in its court filing that its loss ratios had been hit by "continued high unemployment in the U.S. and the slow economic recovery in U.S. residential mortgage and housing markets." The case is In re Triad Guaranty Inc., Case No. 13-11452, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of Delaware.

Philip Falcone's Harbinger Capital Partners hedge-fund firm plans to pay Jefferies & Co. up to $80 million in fees as part of an exit-financing commitment for bankrupt wireless-satellite venture LightSquared, a loan that the company said would pay off bondholders in full, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. LightSquared added that the exit financing, a senior secured loan with terms that will be filed confidentially with the court, "will serve as the cornerstone of a standalone plan of reorganization for LightSquared that will most likely provide for full payment to all creditors and the retention of equity interests by shareholders."

If successful, a lawsuit in the Lyondell Chemical Co. case and a nearly identical one stemming from the failed buyout of Tribune Co. could circumvent the legal protections that have generally shielded individual investors when a leveraged buyout goes bust, Reuters reported on Friday. The cases pit sophisticated creditor plaintiffs, such as Aurelius Capital Management, against retirees, money managers, pension funds and family foundations. Investors who had less than $100,000 at stake have been dismissed from the cases. The two lawsuits are pursuing claims under fraudulent conveyance laws. Fraudulent transfer claims are usually brought to claw back dividend payments made to a private equity owner or to challenge an asset sale made just prior to a bankruptcy. But in Lyondell and Tribune, creditor lawyers have come up with a way around a Bankruptcy Code provision that has largely shielded former shareholders from being sued for their role in a fraudulent conveyance.

Sound Shore Medical Center of Westchester, an affiliate of New York College of Medicine serving patients in the New Rochelle area, filed for bankruptcy protection, planning a sale to Montefiore Health System, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The company, with about 2,000 employees, listed assets of $159.6 million and debts of $200 million in papers filed in Bankruptcy Court on Wednesday. Sound Shore said that it will continue business as usual pending the sale to Bronx, N.Y.-based Montefiore by the end of the year, subject to court approval. The center was formed in 1997, when Mount Vernon Hospital, Sound Shore Medical Center, Dorothea Hopfer School of Nursing and Schaffer Extended Care Center affiliated to create one of the largest private healthcare systems between New York City and Albany.

Shares in CIT Group Inc., the business lender run by John Thain, jumped 5.4 percent after reporting that regulatory curbs imposed in 2009 while the firm struggled to survive have been lifted, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. CIT received notice from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York that a written agreement dated Aug. 12, 2009 was terminated, according to a statement today from the company. Bad loans including subprime mortgages led New York-based CIT to take $2.33 billion from the Treasury’s bank rescue fund and then file for bankruptcy. Thain, who joined the company after its troubles began, led CIT with a plan that reduced the lender’s bad credits and high cost of funds, but the bailout wasn’t repaid. CIT’s 2009 agreement with the Fed required the company to seek the regulator’s approval for issuing dividends or incurring new debt. CIT also pledged to provide periodic updates focusing on cash and funding.

Bankruptcy Judge Marvin Isgur warned ATP Oil & Gas Corp. that it is not "preordained" that he will approve the asset sale the company has long been pinning its hopes on but which has run into complications, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. The remarks from Judge Isgur came at a status conference on ATP's progress in resolving concerns about its planned sale to its lenders. The lenders, led by Credit Suisse, have offered about $690 million for ATP's deepwater drilling assets, but much of the offer is in the form of debt forgiveness instead of cash.

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Members of the United Mine Workers are planning a demonstration in western Kentucky to protest the potential loss of benefits for thousands of retired miners and their families, the Associated Press reported yesterday. The union says that it will bring about 30 busloads of miners, retirees and families to Henderson, Ky., on Tuesday to protest plans by Patriot Coal Corp. to modify pensions and health benefits. A federal judge ruled last Wednesday that Patriot can proceed with significant cuts to healthcare and pension benefits to thousands of workers and retirees. The miners' union is planning to appeal. Union leaders allege that Patriot was saddled with unsustainable pension costs when its parent company, Peabody Coal, jettisoned it as a separate company in 2007.

Bankruptcy Judge Kathy Surratt-States ruled yesterday that Patriot Coal Corp. can reject collective bargaining agreements, cease pension contributions and convert retiree health care to an outside fund as part of its plan to save $150 million a year in labor costs, Reuters reported yesterday. "There is likely some responsibility to be absorbed for demanding benefits that the employer cannot realistically fund in perpetuity," Judge Surratt-States wrote her opinion. The United Mine Workers of America, which represents 1,700 current Patriot workers and 13,000 retirees and their relatives, vowed to appeal the ruling. The union has planned a public rally for June 4 in Henderson, Kentucky. Patriot's current proposal would cease pension contributions and convert health care to a voluntary employees' beneficiary association (VEBA) funded by $15 million in up-front cash and $300 million in profit-sharing contributions. The union would receive a 35 percent equity stake in post-bankruptcy Patriot, which it could sell to help fund the VEBA. The company's proposal would also reduce wages and decrease paid time-off.

Bankruptcy Judge Brendan L. Shannon on Tuesday cleared waste processor Synagro Technologies Inc. to draw the full amount of a $30 million loan to keep it operating through an upcoming sale, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. The judge had already authorized Synagro to draw $15 million of the loan shortly after the company sought chapter 11 protection last month.

After facing an eviction notice during Memorial Day weekend, Dance New Amsterdam, the nonprofit dance school, studio and theater space located in New York City, filed for chapter 11 protection on Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The dance company, which remains open for business, has struggled to meet financial obligations associated with the 25,000-square-foot space it moved into in 2006 after more than 20 years in SoHo. At the time, the move was encouraged by the city as part of an attempt to revive the cultural life of Lower Manhattan after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But the original agreement led to overwhelming debt and an unsustainable lease.