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American Airlines parent AMR Corp. won bankruptcy court approval of the deal it reached with regulators to complete its $17.2 billion merger with US Airways Group Inc. and create the world’s biggest airline, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday. The accord with the U.S. Justice Department, which agreed on Nov. 12 to drop its antitrust challenge if the carriers gave up some airport slots, was approved today by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane. “The settlement easily satisfies” bankruptcy requirements and the merger may be consummated without delay, Judge Lane said at a hearing. A group that sued to block the deal “utterly failed” to prove the merger would harm them, he said. AMR, based in Fort Worth, Texas, intends to complete the merger on Dec. 9 and rename the company American Airlines Group Inc. The last day of trading of all outstanding securities of AMR and the common stock of US Airways will be Dec. 6, according to a company statement.

FX Concepts LLC, the currency hedge fund founded by John Taylor in 1981, asked a bankruptcy court for permission to sell its trademark and trading models to Ruby Commodities Inc. for $7.48 million after an auction yesterday, Bloomberg News reported today. Ruby made the best offer for all the company’s assets after 39 rounds of bidding, International Foreign Exchange Concepts Holdings Inc., the holding company for FX Concepts, said a court filing yesterday. Before that, FX Concepts proposed to sell its trading models individually and drew offers that valued them at as much as $3.48 million, according to court papers.

Fisker Automotive Inc.'s creditors pounced Tuesday to preserve potential lawsuits targeting the U.S. Department of Energy's decision to shut off funding to the hybrid-car maker, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. The move came as Fisker sought preliminary court approval to tap a bankruptcy loan and move toward a sale of its operations to Hybrid Tech Group LLC. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross cleared the bankruptcy financing on an interim basis and set a Jan. 3 hearing date to review the sale of Fisker to Hybrid Tech. However, the judge said he will hear from an official committee of unsecured creditors once that panel is formed before making any final decisions.

GateHouse Media Inc. has emerged from a pre-packaged chapter 11 bankruptcy, the Quincy (Mass.) Patriot Ledger reported today. GateHouse filed for chapter 11 on Sept. 27 with the unanimous support of its lenders to restructure $1.2 billion of debt that was scheduled to come due in August 2014. GateHouse is now owned by New Media Investment Group Inc. and is under common ownership with Local Media Group, the newspaper group that operates eight daily community newspapers and 13 weeklies. GateHouse, headquartered in Fairport, N.Y., is one of the largest publishers of locally based print and online media in the United States as measured by its 78 daily publications.

U.S. District Judge James Moody yesterday approved an estimated $85 million class-action settlement of a suit in which trucking customers alleged Pilot Flying J, the largest truck-stop chain in North America, defrauded them over several years through a diesel-rebate program, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported yesterday. The settlement, which is between Pilot and plaintiffs in 10 of about 20 pending lawsuits against it, requires the company to have auditors examine its trucking accounts and pay any money owed, in addition to 6 percent in annualized interest.

Dish Network Inc. shareholders are asking a Nevada judge to exclude the company’s chairman and controlling shareholder, Charlie Ergen, from the bankruptcy court auction of LightSquared Inc., Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Ergen, who privately bought $1 billion in LightSquared debt, has a conflict of interest, and Dish’s $2.22 billion bid for LightSquared’s wireless spectrum should be overseen by an independent committee, lawyers for the shareholders argued at a hearing yesterday. The Jacksonville Police and Fire Pension Fund said in a complaint brought on behalf of the satellite-television provider against the board of directors that Ergen’s private purchase of LightSquared’s debt conflicts with Dish’s strategic interests in the company’s assets, and that a “corporate governance breakdown” at the company had ensued. The pension fund said that Dish had created a two-person special committee to protect it from a “blatant conflict of interest” between the company, which seeks to buy spectrum as part of its business strategy, and Ergen, who “secretly made himself LightSquared’s largest creditor” by buying its debt from around the time of its bankruptcy filing in May 2012.

The parent company of American Airlines yesterday asked a bankruptcy court to approve a settlement with U.S. regulators that would allow it to merge with rival US Airways Group and create the world's largest airline, Reuters reported yesterday. Stephen Karotkin, a lawyer for AMR Corp, said that the settlement resolving the U.S. Justice Department's antitrust objections was not opposed by any of the company's creditors. The only opposition came from a group of consumers who had sued the airlines in a separate case alleging that the merger would lead to higher prices, more crowded planes and more expensive in-flight amenities. The group sought a temporary restraining order blocking the plan from going into effect.

Court filings show that FX Concepts, once the largest currency hedge fund in the world, has less than $2 million in assets now and $79 million in liabilities, Reuters reported yesterday. The fund filed for bankruptcy protection more than a month ago as its assets dwindled due to market losses and redemptions from major clients. At its peak in 2007, the $14 billion that FX Concepts had in assets under management made it the largest currency hedge fund in the world.

The bankruptcy of Fisker Automotive could end up costing the U.S. government much more than the $168 million it loaned to the maker of the Karma plug-in hybrid sports car, Reuters reported yesterday. According to its bankruptcy filing on Friday, Fisker owns tax breaks worth $320 million. Fisker's bankruptcy papers said the Southern California-based company plans to sell its automotive operations to a business affiliated with Hong Kong tycoon Richard Li, but it will hold on to the tax breaks after it emerges from bankruptcy. Fisker piled up some $800 million in net operating losses in recent years, which have a future cash benefit worth approximately $320 million, according to the bankruptcy filing. The U.S. Department of Energy extended the company a $529 million credit line in 2009 as part of the Obama administration's efforts to boost advanced vehicle development in the U.S. The credit line was frozen in 2011 before it could be fully drawn.

The owner of Major League Baseball’s Houston Astros sued former owner Drayton McLane Jr. and Comcast Corp., claiming that he was misled about the value of the regional sports network that televises the team’s games, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Houston Baseball Partners LLC, led by Jim Crane, filed the lawsuit Nov. 21 in state court in Houston. The company said that it paid $615 million for the team and its 40 percent stake in Houston Regional Sports Network LP in November 2011 “based on knowing misrepresentations” McLane gave him concerning the network’s value. Creditors including affiliates of Philadelphia-based Comcast filed an involuntary chapter 11 bankruptcy petition against the network on Sept. 27 “to avoid the destruction of the network’s substantial value,” according to court filings. The network is owned by Comcast, the Astros and the National Basketball Association’s Houston Rockets. Comcast, the biggest U.S. cable operator, claimed it’s owed more than $100 million and the network hasn’t been paying its debts as they come due.