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Bankrupt power company Energy Future Holdings Corp. received conditional court approval to accept bids for its majority stake in Oncor, a power transmission company in Texas worth billions of dollars, Reuters reported yesterday. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Sontchi said yesterday that Energy Future could begin accepting bids once it had changed the way affiliates approved of the plan to sell Oncor. He also said that the bidding process must involve the two official creditors committees and the time frame for the sale should be extended. "The immense size of this case and $18 billion asset is certainly unusual and the involvement of public companies as bidders is a complicating factor,” Judge Sontchi said. “But there is no reason to depart from established practices that have developed for selling an asset in bankruptcy.” Creditors had objected to the proposed process because it involved sealed bids to choose a stalking-horse bidder. Once the stalking horse was chosen, Energy Future planned to have an open auction when all bids could be reviewed by participants. Judge Sontchi said that Energy Future would have to allow the participation of the two official creditors committees in the selection of a stalking horse bidder. The company originally set a deadline for final bids for the role of stalking horse on Nov. 21, which Sontchi said would have to be extended.

A federal judge on Friday approved a revised bankruptcy loan for Exide Technologies Inc., but granted junior creditors the right to float their own chapter 11 emergence plan for the distressed battery maker, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. The ruling from Judge Kevin Carey opens up the Georgia company’s contentious chapter 11 case, which has been marked by escalating problems with environmental regulators. Exide gets extended bankruptcy financing from a syndicate led by JPMorgan Chase & Co., but unsecured creditors will be free to compete with the company over how to get Exide out of chapter 11. Exide has been protected from the threat of rival reorganization proposals since filing for chapter 11 bankruptcy in June 2013. Unsecured creditors, however, don’t like the course the company is steering. Friday’s ruling gives them a chance to explore other options for Exide, a global company with a substantial business.

A deal to acquire the stalled Chicago Spire project out of bankruptcy hasn't closed and may not, according to a lawyer for the project's longtime leader, leaving the future of the proposed high rise in doubt, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Thomas Murphy, a lawyer for Irish developer Garrett Kelleher, said on Friday that new investor Atlas Apartment Holdings LLC hasn't yet met Friday's deadline to obtain the financing it needs to pay off the Spire's creditors and take over the project.

Ahead of a key hearing this week in the Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc. bankruptcy, unsecured creditors blasted the company's disclosure statement for its chapter 11 reorganization plan as a "charade" that should not be approved by the judge, Philly.com reported on Saturday. The creditors said that the plan is designed for the "sole purpose of preserving hundreds of million of dollars in tax attributes for the exclusive benefit of [Carl] Icahn," who has a $292 million secured claim on Trump assets. Under the plan, affiliates of Icahn would trade $292 million in debt for 55 percent of the stock in the company and a $100 million note that would not require cash interest payments. Instead, the amount owed to Icahn would increase over five years, according to bankruptcy court filings. Icahn — who lost a battle for ownership of Trump Entertainment in 2010 bankruptcy — would obtain the remaining 45 percent of the company's equity in exchange for a $100 million investment. But Icahn will only make that $100 million investment if state and local governments agree to provide $175 million in aid over the next five years, including $55 million immediately after the company emerges from bankruptcy, according to the plan.

A bankruptcy judge on Thursday approved a restructuring plan that will hand control of ComcastSportsNet Houston, a regional sports network, to DirecTV and AT&T Inc., the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. The plan, which Judge Marvin Isgur approved over the objections of Comcast Corp., will shut down the network and then relaunch it under the name Root Sports Houston. Comcast, through subsidiaries, owns about 23 percent of CSN Houston, which broadcasts games for Major League Baseball’s Houston Astros and the National Basketball Association’s Houston Rockets. The Astros own about 46 percent of the channel and the Rockets own 30 percent. Comcast is owed more than $100 million stemming from funding it provided to create the network. During the hearing, Craig Goldblatt, a lawyer representing Comcast, said the restructuring plan “jumps through a series of hoops” to deprive Comcast of its right to be repaid. Under the plan, Comcast will receive the proceeds of the sale of the network’s assets, for which the Astros and Rockets have agreed to place an initial $26.2 million bid. “Comcast’s economic recovery here is better than if we don’t confirm the plan,” Judge Isgur said as he gave his ruling from the bench. “A denial of confirmation results in liquidation.”

Siga Technologies Inc., the biological-warfare defense firm supplying the only smallpox drug for the U.S. strategic stockpile, received court permission to mediate a damages award in a licensing dispute that drove it into bankruptcy, Bloomberg News reported on Friday. Siga and competitor PharmAthene Inc., which won a 2006 lawsuit, agreed to mediate a final resolution over the amount of damages Siga must pay, Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane said in a ruling on Thursday in Manhattan. A creditor committee that includes PharmAthene had supported mediation, according to court papers. The litigation, pending in Delaware state court, will continue during mediation, and any accord over a possible $232 million in damages reached by the companies will require bankruptcy court approval, Judge Lane said. Delaware’s highest court last year upheld a judge’s 2011 finding that Siga violated promises to negotiate in good faith with Annapolis, Md.-based PharmAthene over a license for Tecovirimat when it was being developed. Siga may have walked away from the talks after realizing the drug’s potential value, the court ruled.

A bankruptcy judge in New Hampshire yesterday ordered the unsealing of papers spelling out, in detail, the reasons jilted Apple Inc. supplier GT Advanced Technologies Inc. filed for chapter 11 protection, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Apple sought to keep the information under wraps out of fear it will harm its reputation and its relationships with other suppliers. Over Apple’s protests, Judge Henry Boroff said that he would take another look at the challenged document, an affidavit signed by GT Advanced Chief Operating Officer Daniel Squiller and filed with the court. Next week, the judge said, he will issue an order unsealing Squiller’s statement. The Oct. 6 bankruptcy filing sent GT Advanced’s stock into a dive and bond prices tumbled, as shocked investors clamored for more information about what went wrong between the smartphone maker and the company it had set up in the business of producing sapphire material for smart screens. At a court hearing Thursday, Judge Boroff said that Bankruptcy Code protections against defamatory information don’t apply to Squiller’s characterizations of Apple’s behavior.

A bankruptcy judge signed off on C&S Wholesale Grocers Inc.'s $288 million purchase of Pennsylvania-based food distributor Associated Wholesalers Inc., Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Judge Kevin Carey approved the sale of Associated, a cooperative whose subsidiaries include White Rose and Nell's Shurfine Markets, at a Wednesday hearing. The sale, which is expected to close by Thanksgiving, includes almost all of Associated's assets as well as its 2,200 employees. (Subscription required.)

A large group of creditors of MF Global Holdings Ltd.'s bankrupt brokerage unit will soon receive their first payout, as $518.7 million of checks start to be mailed out on Friday, the third anniversary of the company's chapter 11 filing, Reuters reported yesterday. James Giddens, the trustee liquidating the MF Global Inc. brokerage unit, said yesterday that the payout to unsecured general creditors will cover 39 percent of claims he has deemed valid. He said another $32.3 million will be distributed to some "priority" claimants, covering all of their valid claims. Giddens is keeping roughly $300 million in reserve for unresolved unsecured and priority claims, and said he expects another significant distribution by next June.

A pension fund said yesterday that GT Advanced Technologies Inc. shouldn’t be allowed to destroy papers filed under seal in its bankruptcy because shareholders may need the information in lawsuits, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. A sealed declaration by GT Advanced’s chief operating officer, Daniel Squiller, “details the reasons precipitating and necessitating” the bankruptcy, information litigants in at least nine federal securities lawsuits will need, the City of Pontiac General Employees’ Retirement System said in a filing yesterday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New Hampshire. GT Advanced filed for bankruptcy this month without specifying why. The Merrimack, N.H.-based company, which makes synthetic sapphire used to strengthen smartphone screens, later cited a burdensome supply agreement with Apple Inc. but continues to keep many of the details secret. The company has since reached a settlement with Apple that originally called for the destruction of Squiller’s declaration once the bankruptcy court approved the deal. Securities law requires all documents that may be relevant to a case be preserved, the retirement fund said in its filing.