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Coldwater Creek’s creditors are at a loss to understand why sales boomed in the wake of its bankruptcy filing, but it’s not a mystery to the former retailer’s target customers, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. Coldwater Creek launched in the Midwest some 30 years ago and catered to mature, educated women. The line caught on among a crowd of people, including professional women, who didn’t have the time or patience to go from store to store to find comfortable classics. When Coldwater Creek shoppers found out the company was going under, they stocked up, according to Massachusetts attorney Alanna Cline, who identified herself as “a very satisfied and needy customer — notwithstanding the decline in quality and design over the past couple of years.” The prospect of saving a couple more bucks at going-out-of-business sales wasn’t worth the risk that favorite items would be sold out, it seems. “Fear and need” drove a run on the Coldwater Creek website, according to Cline.

The debate over who deserves to profit from work that originated at a law firm that collapsed comes to a head on Wednesday when New York's highest court will hear arguments in cases stemming from the bankruptcies of Coudert Brothers LLP, which went under in 2005, and Thelen LLP, which closed in 2008, the Wall Street Journal reported today. A decision by the New York Court of Appeals will provide clarity into how much money, if any, should flow back to defunct firms' creditors, including those of the biggest U.S. law-firm failure ever, Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP. At issue is whether the estates of bankrupt law firms have stakes in so-called unfinished business, the assignments taken by partners to a new firm as their old firm dissolves. Bankruptcy administrators have long argued that the failing firms have valid claims. But partners at the nation's top law firms say that client business isn't a commodity that can be bought and sold. They say that clients have the freedom to choose counsel, and lawyers — and their new employers — shouldn't be punished for sticking with an assignment after a law firm collapses.

Nearly four years into its chapter 11 bankruptcy, Garlock Sealing Technologies Inc. has started the paperwork to get out of it, the Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat & Herald reported on Saturday. The Palmyra, N.Y.-based maker of industrial gaskets and seals on Thursday filed a proposed reorganization plan in bankruptcy court. That 347-page document spells out how the company proposes to wrap up all the myriad asbestos-related personal-injury claims that caused it to file for bankruptcy in June 2010. The company, as well as parent company EnPro Industries, are proposing a $275 million trust fund, split over two accounts, to handle any current and future claims against Garlock.

A nine-member group of senior managers and mine operations heads at James River Coal Co. would get aggregate payments of $890,000 to $2.7 million as part of a proposed incentive program, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The Richmond, Va.-based mining company, which is going through its second trip in bankruptcy, asked a federal bankruptcy court judge to approve incentive, retention and severance programs as James River Coal approaches a July asset auction. Pending approval by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Richmond at a hearing on Wednesday, the senior managers and mine operations heads would get the payments based on the company meeting certain value targets achieved through a sale, a chapter 11 reorganization or both. Also up for approval are retention payments, not to exceed about $1.4 million in total, to 39 lower-level employees.

Hedge-fund manager Philip Falcone is taking aim at the federal government over its refusal to authorize LightSquared to launch a wireless network, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. In a letter addressed to the Federal Communications Commission, lawyers for Falcone's Harbinger Capital Partners LLC hedge fund complained that the "billions of dollars" it sunk into LightSquared has been for naught after regulators ordered an "indefinite halt" to further development of LightSquared's network. Without an operational network, which regulators said could interfere with global-positioning systems, LightSquared filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in May 2012 and has since lost $1.3 billion, according to court papers. A bankruptcy judge recently threw out the company's restructuring proposal, leaving it with no immediate path out of chapter 11. In the letter, dated May 28, Harbinger's lawyers urged the FCC to take "immediate, positive action" in resolving the limbo in which LightSquared has languished for the past several years.

GM has earned a stunning $22.6 billion since 2009, when the automaker filed for chapter 11 with government assistance, according to a CNNMoney.com analysis yesterday. Taxpayers didn't fare nearly as well, losing $10.6 billion by the time the U.S. Treasury Department closed the books on GM’s $49.5 billion bailout in December 2013. GM, which filed for bankruptcy five years ago this Sunday, has repaid everything it was obligated to pay Treasury. Taxpayers came up short because the U.S. decided to buy GM stock to keep the automaker alive instead of giving it a loan and saddling it with more debt. Although GM has been very profitable since 2009, its stock price hasn’t risen to a level that has enabled Treasury to recoup that investment. GM is now one of the 40 most profitable companies in the nation. But the costs related to its controversial ignition-switch recall essentially wiped out its profits in the first quarter of this year. GM estimates that repairs to the 15.8 million vehicles it's recalled this year will cost at least $1.7 billion, which doesn't include any legal costs, fines or victim payouts that it will face.

A panel of federal judges heard arguments this week on where to merge 90 ignition-defect suits against General Motors Co., as lawyers for car owners claimed to know of many more related deaths than the 13 acknowledged by the automaker, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. So far, New York and California courts are the lead contenders. Corpus Christi, Texas, lawyer Rudy Gonzales has claimed to know of at least 60 deaths related to the defect, but has not provided the seven-member panel any evidence. The defect causes ignition switches in some cars to shut off while the vehicles are being driven, disabling power steering and preventing airbags from deploying upon impact. The judges will decide where claims for economic losses associated with some of the 2.59 million recalled cars will initially be heard.

James River Coal Co. is seeking bankruptcy-court approval for a bonus plan that could spread up to $2.7 million in extra pay among top executives of the operation, which is being auctioned in July, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Details of how the proposed bonuses would be divided among Chairman and Chief Executive Peter Socha and eight other top-ranking insiders are being kept secret by the coal company, which filed for chapter 11 protection on April 7 loaded down with more than $800 million in debt. James River says the extra pay is keyed to getting a good result at a July auction, where the troubled coal operation is inviting buyout offers and offers from investors willing to help get the company back on its feet. Should the auction not go well, the top executive bonus pool could be as little as about $892,000, court papers say.

Longview Power LLC, a West Virginia power plant built at a cost of $2 billion, is seeking a judge's permission to continue to rally support for its latest chapter 11 plan as well as permission to extend the period in which it alone can solicit votes on the plan without interference from outsiders, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. At a key hearing today, Bankruptcy Judge Brendan Shannon will consider Longview's requests, which face resistance from two major creditors and an insurance company. The creditors, contractors tied up in long-standing disputes over disrupted operations at the plant, both said that Longview's proposed supplemental chapter 11 plan materials are not ready to be sent out to creditors.

LightSquared and its creditors, including Dish Network Corp. Chairman Charles Ergen, will go into court-ordered mediation to settle on a plan to restructure the bankrupt wireless venture, Reuters reported yesterday. Bankruptcy Judge Shelley Chapman had given sides until yesterday to forge a consensual plan to get LightSquared out of chapter 11, or else mediate under Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain. Paul Basta, a lawyer for an independent committee supervising the LightSquared restructuring, said yesterday that the sides had made some progress on a new deal but needed help getting "across the finish line."