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Bankruptcy Judge George Hodges accepted the $125 million figure proposed by Garlock Sealing Technologies, cutting more than $1 billion from what the company owes to current and future victims, the Charlotte Observer reported yesterday. The amount covers claims for mesothelioma, a rare and deadly cancer of the lining of the lungs and one of a host of diseases linked to asbestos. Attorneys representing current and future mesothelioma victims had asked the court to set liability at $1.3 billion. But in his 65-page order on Friday, Judge Hodges said that the attorneys’ dollar figure did not fairly reflect Garlock’s liability. According to the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform, an industry advocacy group, Hodges’ ruling marked the first time in more than 80 asbestos bankruptcies stretching back for more than 30 years that a judge refused to accept the plaintiffs’ estimate for future claims.

Three years after it declared bankruptcy as a way to deal with its mounting sex abuse claims, the Archdiocese of Milwaukee is poised to file the reorganization plan that will detail how it compensates abuse victims and operates as an institution into the future, the Milwaukee (Wis.) Journal Sentinel reported today. The archdiocese is preparing that plan, but it has offered few hints about its content or when it might be filed in bankruptcy court. The Milwaukee bankruptcy, filed by Archbishop Jerome Listecki in January 2011, came after the archdiocese had been largely successful in fighting lawsuits dating back at least to the 1950s. With 575 sex abuse claims and legal fees topping $11 million, it is one of the largest and most contentious bankruptcies filed by Catholic dioceses around the country, say observers and lawyers who've worked on those cases.

Constar International Holdings LLC, which is headed into a bankruptcy auction for its assets, yesterday chose an affiliate of Black Diamond Capital Management to finance its bankruptcy after a "mini-auction" urged by the judge presiding over the case, Dow Jones Newswires reported yesterday. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Sontchi indicated he would approve the new deal with Black Diamond, which bested other existing backers led by Solus Alternative Asset Management LP in a competition for the right to loan money to Constar in chapter 11. The Philadelphia-based maker of plastic containers is putting its assets up for auction, with a $68.5 million buyout offer from an affiliate of Australia's Amcor Ltd. to set a floor price, and strong interest from Michigan's Plastipak Holdings Inc., and Georgia's CKS Packaging.

Dish Network Corp. Chairman Charles Ergen said that by late 2011 his company didn’t consider LightSquared Inc. an attractive acquisition, while he remained interested in investing personally, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Ergen, testifying yesterday in bankruptcy court, is accused of secretly accumulating $1 billion in LightSquared debt so he could control the broadband services provider’s reorganization and use its wireless spectrum to help Dish expand into wireless. LightSquared, controlled by Philip Falcone’s Harbinger Capital Partners LLC, sued Ergen and Dish in August seeking to disallow the $1 billion claim. Ergen, who last week sought to drop his bid for some of the company’s airwaves, said yesterday that he saw LightSquared as an opportunity for himself, not Dish.

Fast-food pizza chain Sbarro LLC, which emerged from bankruptcy protection about 14 months ago, has tapped restructuring advisers amid business struggles, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Closely held Sbarro, which carries roughly $150 million in debt, recently enlisted restructuring lawyers at Kirkland & Ellis LLP and bankers at Moelis & Co., these people said. There are roughly 1,000 Sbarro restaurants across 30 countries, according to its website. The majority of its more than 600 U.S. restaurants are located in food courts and airports. The chain, based in Melville, N.Y., filed for bankruptcy in April 2011 and emerged in November 2012, cutting its debt roughly in half. A bankruptcy filing by the company is not imminent, according to those familiar with the hiring of the restructuring advisers.

The duel over Fisker Automotive Inc. continued to heat up yesterday, when a company connected to Hong Kong's Richard Li boosted its bid for the failed maker of luxury hybrid vehicles, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Li's takeover company, Hybrid Tech Holdings LLC, said that it would pay $55 million for Fisker, with only $25 million of the purchase price coming in the form of a credit bid or in an offer to cancel debt owed by Fisker to Hybrid Tech. The rest, $30 million, will be cash, Hybrid Tech's new offer says.

Several health care companies are interested in buying Poughkeepsie, N.Y.-based Saint Francis Hospital, which recently filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. ArchCare, a nonprofit health care organization affiliated with the Archdiocese of New York, and Westchester County Health Care Corp. both sent letters to a bankruptcy court indicating they will submit bids in an effort to purchase the hospital. The 333-bed facility is looking for bidders who can top the more-than $24 million offered by stalking-horse bidder Health Quest Systems Inc., which has promised to keep the 2,000-worker hospital open. An auction has been scheduled for Feb. 13, with a sale hearing to follow on Feb. 18.

Dish Network Corp. Chairman Charles Ergen is set to defend his purchase of $1 billion in debt in bankrupt wireless provider LightSquared Inc. against claims by Philip Falcone that the investment was improper, Bloomberg News reported today. Falcone, whose Harbinger Capital Partners LLC controls LightSquared, has accused Ergen of surreptitiously buying the debt to hijack LightSquared’s reorganization and get control of the company’s airwaves. Ergen, who is scheduled to testify today before Bankruptcy Judge Shelley Chapman, has defended the debt purchases as a smart investment and said that he made no “false representations” in pursuing it. Falcone is seeking to disallow the $1 billion claim. He has proposed that he hold onto the Reston, Va.-based LightSquared, into which he has already sunk $3 billion. He may to testify later in the trial.

Shares of EnPro Industries climbed in aftermarket trading Friday after a bankruptcy court judge confirmed the company won't have to set aside more money to cover mesothelioma claims against one of its subsidiaries, the Associated Press reported on Friday. Bankruptcy Judge George Hodges said that $125 million was enough to cover current and future mesothelioma claims involving Garlock Sealing Technologies. EnPro said in late 2011 that it thought it would need to set aside $270 million to cover those liabilities, but in July it lowered that total to no more than $125 million.

Dish Network Corp.’s motion to drop its $2.2 billion offer for airwaves owned by LightSquared Inc. became the focus of a trial over how Dish Chairman Charles Ergen bought debt in Philip Falcone’s bankrupt wireless broadband company, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Dish sent a termination letter just before a trial began yesterday bankruptcy court, where the satellite-television company and Ergen are accused of improperly acquiring the LightSquared debt. Lawyers for LightSquared told Bankruptcy Judge Shelley Chapman that Dish’s latest move may be a gambit to drive down the price of the assets. The lawyers said Ergen began stockpiling the debt in 2011, the year before LightSquared’s bankruptcy, and spent $800 million of his personal wealth, including money in his daughter’s trust fund.