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Energy Future Holdings Corp., the Texas utility at the center of a record private-equity buyout, is in last-ditch negotiations with creditors in a bid to reach a debt-restructuring deal before it seeks chapter 11 protection, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The Dallas-based power company's lenders and bondholders have signed confidentiality agreements within the last week in the hopes of reaching a deal that would help shorten Energy Future's trip through bankruptcy court. The agreements allow creditors to review the company's nonpublic financial records. Energy Future, formerly called TXU Corp., is preparing to file for bankruptcy protection as soon as April 1. That is around the time the company must file an annual report with federal regulators, in which it is likely to reveal it has received an opinion from auditors expressing doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern. Such an opinion would trigger a default on billions of dollars in debt that would force the utility to file for bankruptcy protection.

The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law will be holding a hearing today at 4 p.m. ET titled "Exploring Chapter 11 Reform: Corporate and Financial Institution Insolvencies; Treatment of Derivatives." ABI members Prof. Michelle Harner, the official reporter for ABI's Commission to Study the Reform of Chapter 11, Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Sontchi (S.D.N.Y.) and Jane Vris of Millstein & Co. (New York) are among the witnesses set to testify at the hearing. For more information, please click here: http://judiciary.house.gov/index.cfm/hearings?ID=94D02F41-1832-4385-B16…

Global Geophysical Services Inc., a provider of seismic data to oil and gas companies, filed for bankruptcy due to heavy debt and said it was seeking court approval for $60 million in debtor-in-possession financing, Reuters reported today. Global Geophysical said on Tuesday that its foreign subsidiaries were not included in the bankruptcy filing. Demand for seismic data, which creates images of the earth's subsurface and helps companies to identify oil-and-gas-bearing structures, has risen as energy companies increase exploration in remote and difficult areas. Global Geophysical had warned of a liquidity crunch earlier this month.

The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law will be holding a hearing tomorrow at 4 p.m. ET titled "Exploring Chapter 11 Reform: Corporate and Financial Institution Insolvencies; Treatment of Derivatives." ABI members Prof. Michelle Harner, the official reporter for ABI's Commission to Study the Reform of Chapter 11, Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Sontchi (S.D.N.Y.) and Jane Vris of Millstein & Co. (New York) are among the witnesses set to testify at the hearing. For more information, please click here: http://judiciary.house.gov/index.cfm/hearings?ID=94D02F41-1832-4385-B16…

Broadband company LightSquared has urged a judge not to re-open a trial that ended last week over Dish Network Corp Chairman Charles Ergen's purchase of LightSquared debt, saying that it would delay resolution of LightSquared's bankruptcy proceedings, Reuters reported yesterday. In a court filing on Friday, lawyers for LightSquared said that the company should not have to bear the "tremendous cost" in money, time and distraction and have its efforts to emerge from bankruptcy imperiled. LightSquared, which filed for bankruptcy in 2012, presented closing arguments last week in a trial over whether Ergen improperly acquired $1 billion of the company's debt to take control of its wireless rights. Bankruptcy Judge Shelley Chapman has not yet issued a ruling in the trial, which ended yesterday.

Credit Suisse Securities LLC said in a letter on Friday that Philip Falcone’s LightSquared Inc. will probably be able to borrow $1 billion to finance its exit from bankruptcy as a standalone company, Bloomberg News reported on Saturday. The Credit Suisse Group AG unit said that it was confident it could arrange the proposed bankruptcy-exit loan as long as LightSquared, a wireless broadband provider, met conditions including obtaining the “cooperation of all parties-at-interest” in the reorganization and “all required regulatory approvals.” LightSquared, based in Reston, Va., sought bankruptcy protection in 2012 after the Federal Communications Commission blocked the company’s service, saying that it might interfere with civilian and military global-positioning-system navigation equipment. Since then, it’s been engaged in a struggle for control of its future with Dish Network Corp. Chairman Charles Ergen.

NEC Corp. of Japan said today that it had succeeded in a second attempt to acquire a unit of A123 Systems LLC, an American provider of green-energy technologies that was funded by the Obama administration before filing for bankruptcy protection in 2012, the Wall Street Journal reported today. NEC has agreed to buy a division of A123 that provides power storage systems to alternative energy plants. NEC said that it would pay about $100 million to acquire the business from Wanxiang Group Corp., a Chinese company that bought A123, including its automotive battery business, during the bankruptcy proceedings for $257 million.

Dolan Co., a provider of legal-support services and publishing, filed for bankruptcy after agreeing to be taken over by lenders to cut debt linked to its former mortgage foreclosure-processing business, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The Minneapolis-based company listed debt of $185.9 million and assets of $236.2 million as of Sept. 30 in a Chapter 11 petition filed today in Wilmington, Delaware. Dolan said that it didn’t expect its DiscoverReady LLC document-review unit to join it in bankruptcy. All company services, including those provided by DiscoverReady, will continue without interruption, according to the statement.

General Motors Co. was hit with a lawsuit on Wednesday demanding that the company be held liable for allegedly concealing ignition problems before its 2009 bankruptcy, Reuters reported yesterday. The ignition switch problems led to the recall of 1.6 million vehicles last month. GM is a different legal entity from the one that filed the 2009 bankruptcy that sent shock waves through the U.S. economy. The so-called new GM is not responsible under the terms of its bankruptcy exit for legal claims relating to incidents that took place before July 2009. Those claims must be brought against what remains of the "old" or pre-bankruptcy GM. But the proposed class action, filed in federal court in California, said plaintiffs should be allowed to sue over the pre-bankruptcy actions, "because of the active concealment by Old GM and GM."
http://news.yahoo.com/gm-must-pay-pre-bankruptcy-ignition-deception-law…

In related news, Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra is scheduled to testify at a U.S. congressional hearing on April 1 amid a probe into why it took more than a decade to recall vehicles equipped with an ignition defect that’s been linked to a dozen deaths, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Acting Administrator David Friedman will also testify to the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said committee chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.).
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-21/gm-ceo-barra-to-testify-before…

A bankrupt British Virgin Islands luxury resort owner was assailed by lender FirstBank Puerto Rico for an allegedly “false and misleading” court filing saying a settlement had been reached over the bank’s claims, Bloomberg News reported today. The resort owner, Scrub Island Development Group Ltd., filed a restructuring proposal on Wednesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Tampa, Fla., saying that it had an agreement with FirstBank on the treatment of almost $120 million in claims. The statements in the proposed reorganization plan and an accompanying explanatory disclosure statement are “completely false and misleading” and the bank “never agreed to the terms of this nature,” said Lawrence Odell, FirstBank’s general counsel. FirstBank filed an initial objection to the plan making similar statements. Under the proposed plan as filed by Scrub Island, the bank would get a new claim of $37.5 million against the reorganized company, which would be reduced to $30 million with an initial cash payment and then paid over five years. FirstBank would get $84.9 million in unsecured deficiency claims that would receive no recovery.