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Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. expects to bring in $67.5 billion from the liquidation of its assets, an increase of $6.4 billion from an earlier estimate, boosted by gains from its real-estate holdings and derivatives positions along with recoveries from settlements with foreign affiliates, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. In addition, Lehman said that it plans to make a second distribution to creditors Oct. 1, although it declined to comment on how much creditors can expect to see this round. Earlier this year, Lehman made its initial distribution to creditors, paying out $22.5 billion, more than double its original estimate.

American Airlines is going back to court to throw out its contract with union pilots after making changes to satisfy the bankruptcy judge, the Associated Press reported on Friday. If it wins in court, American could cut annual spending on pilots by more than $300 million and do more revenue-sharing deals with other airlines. American parent AMR Corp. filed a motion in U.S. bankruptcy court in New York on Friday, two days after a judge denied American's first attempt to cancel the pilots' contract. The judge rejected the company's demand for unlimited power to furlough pilots and make so-called code-sharing deals. AMR now proposes to limit possible furloughs to about 1,750 or less than one-fourth of its pilots, a ceiling set in the pilots' current contract. The company also seeks to greatly expand code-sharing but not on all routes.

Gulf of Mexico producer ATP Oil & Gas Corp filed for chapter 11 protection on Friday, blaming the financial fallout from the deep sea drilling moratorium that followed the Deepwater Horizon disaster, Reuters reported on Friday. ATP, which reported total debts of $3.49 billion and assets of $3.64 billion, said that it planned to continue operating while restructuring its finances, using $618 million in debtor-in-possession funding. The company said that the U.S. government's stoppage blocked its plans to drill and develop six wells in 2010 and 2011, after it spent more than $1 billion on infrastructure construction related to five of them, largely funded by debt.

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Hawker Beechcraft has asked for more time to file a plan to emerge from bankruptcy, the Associated Press reported on Friday. The Wichita, Kansas-based plane maker asked a bankruptcy court on Thursday to extend until at least Dec 29 the exclusivity period to file a chapter 11 plan. It also wants to extend until Feb. 27 the time to solicit acceptance of the plan from each debtor. Hawker Beechcraft says it needs more time to evaluate and pursue both emerging from bankruptcy as a stand-alone company and emerging through a third-party sale.

General Motors is once again losing market share, and it seems unable to develop products that are truly competitive in the U.S. market, according to a commentary in Forbes on Thursday. The federal government currently owns 500,000,000 shares of GM, or about 26 percent of the company. It would need to get about $53.00/share for these to break even on the bailout, but the stock closed at only $20.21/share last Tuesday Tuesday. This left the government holding $10.1 billion worth of stock, and sitting on an unrealized loss of $16.4 billion. The government's GM stock is currently worth about 39 percent less than it was on November 17, 2010, when the company went public at $33.00/share. It is doubtful that the Obama administration would attempt to sell off the government's massive position in GM while the stock price is falling, according to the commentary. GM is unlikely to look at bankruptcy before the election, but, given current trends, the company could easily do so again before the end of a second Obama term, according to the commentary.

Restructuring professionals say that companies in bankruptcy court are increasingly facing off with Justice Department watchdogs over important matters such as court venue and executive bonuses, the Wall Street Journal reported today. U.S. Trustee recently objected to the venue choice made by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Co., the educational publisher that in May filed for chapter 11 in Manhattan. The company sought to cut more than $3 billion in debt off its balance sheet through a plan supported by more than 90 percent of its creditors. The trustee thought that Boston-based Houghton Mifflin made the wrong venue choice and urged the judge to move the case. Yet Philip Dublin of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, who represented a group of the publisher's creditors, said a change of venue would jeopardize a crucial $500 million financing deal, leaving the company "with potentially no way out of bankruptcy." Restructuring professionals say the trustees' increasingly fastidious approach comes from the director of the U.S. Trustee Program, Clifford J. White III, who is vehement that trustees uphold the letter of the law and the integrity of the bankruptcy system. "The U.S. trustees' objectives are to preserve the integrity of the bankruptcy system," said Kenneth Klee of boutique bankruptcy law firm Klee, Tuchin, Bogdanoff & Stern LLP. "Sometimes in doing so it will not be in the best interest of a particular company."

Getty Petroleum Marketing Inc .'s chapter 11 plan is moving toward confirmation, but creditors of the defunct gas-station operator will not see payments for some time, Dow Jones DBR Small Cap reported today. Objections to the plan were resolved at a court hearing in New York Thursday, leaving only the final chapter 11 exit documents to prepare for a judge's signature. With no new cash coming in, hopes of recovery for creditors hang on lawsuits aimed at Lukoil Holdings , the Russian company that once owned Getty Petroleum.

Want to learn more about oil and gas insolvencies? Be sure to pick up ABI's newest publication, When Gushers Go Dry: The Essentials of Oil & Gas Bankruptcy, in the ABI Bookstore: http://bookstore.abi.org/when-gushers-go-dry-essentials-oil-gas-bankrup…

Former partners from defunct law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP have agreed to give back at least $50 million in past earnings in exchange for immunity from lawsuits relating to the New York firm's demise, the Wall Street Journal reported today. If approved, the deal would mark an unusually early resolution of such "clawback" claims, which typically take years to resolve following a law firm's failure. The firm sought chapter 11 protection on May 28 following a difficult six months of partner exits amid disagreements over compensation and the firm's inability to extend credit agreements with lenders.

An $850 million bond sale from Energy Future Holdings Corp. is paving the way for the power producer KKR & Co. and TPG Capital bought in 2007 for $43.2 billion to potentially put its unregulated unit into bankruptcy, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Proceeds from the sale, a portion of which was secured by the firm’s equity interest in Oncor Electric Delivery Co., will be used to repay a loan to Energy Future's Texas Competitive Electric Holdings Co. Repayment allows the power producer to put Texas Competitive into bankruptcy without triggering defaults elsewhere in the company, according to Covenant Review LLC. Natural gas prices have tumbled 80 percent since July 2008, dragging down electricity rates and cutting Energy Future’s cash flow, leading to six consecutive quarterly losses. The Dallas- based company’s $36.6 billion of long-term debt, $23.5 billion of which may be due in 2015, make the capital structure "untenable," Moody’s Investors Service wrote last week.

AMR Corp's creditors' committee yesterday urged pilots' and flight attendants' unions to promptly reach consensual contracts with the bankrupt parent of American Airlines, saying that those employees would do far better in agreed deals than if the court abrogated contracts, Reuters reported yesterday. The creditors' committee said that American cannot afford to sweeten its latest contract offers. Any additional concessions would endanger a successful Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization for the airline and it would oppose them. The committee spoke out a day after a Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane denied a request by American to abandon collective bargaining agreements with its pilots' union.