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Philip Falcone’s LightSquared Inc. settled a fight with Dish Network Corp. Chairman Charles Ergen over more than $1 billion in debt he holds in the bankrupt wireless broadband company, taking it one step closer to exiting court protection, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Details of a new chapter 11 plan will be filed within a week, Joshua Sussberg, a lawyer for a special committee of LightSquared, told Bankruptcy Judge Shelley Chapman at a court hearing yesterday. A dispute between the company and Ergen, its one-time suitor, scuttled a prior plan to reorganize. The deal with Ergen, which has yet to be completed, “will alleviate a significant burden and execution risk around the plan,” Sussberg said.

A bankruptcy judge on Friday pushed back a decision on a proposal to auction Atlantic City-based Revel Casino Hotel, which last month filed for chapter 11 protection while it searches for a buyer, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. During a bankruptcy court hearing, Revel and its unsecured creditors were unable to come to terms over disputes involving the right of Revel's lender to credit bid as well as the timeline for submitting bids.

When Freedom Industries Inc. sought chapter 11 protection shortly after chemicals leaked from its storage tank into a river, it was expected to face an onslaught of bankruptcy claims from the 300,000 some West Virginians whose water supply was contaminated as a result of the spill, the Wall Street Journal reported today. But as of July 3, just 70 claims were on file in Freedom’s bankruptcy case, court papers show, despite a broad campaign to advertise the Aug. 1 deadline by which individuals and businesses affected by the spill must stake their claims for compensation from Freedom, which has shut down since entering chapter 11. With the deadline fast approaching, the Charleston, W.Va., bankruptcy court this week authorized additional advertisements targeting the areas hit hardest by the spill — the West Virginia counties of Kanawha, Boone and Putnam. James W. Lane Jr., as the court-appointed official in charge of gathering claims, will lead the charge. In court papers, he said he plans to not only continue advertising in local newspapers, at a cost of up to $5,000 but also hit the radio waves. He’s aiming to broadcast 30-second ads with information on how to file claims, with 60 ads running per week for two to three weeks at a cost of up to $5,300.

The debtors in the Garlock Sealing Technologies bankruptcy proceeding have filed a heavily redacted opposition to reopening the sealed record of 2013’s estimation hearing that led to only $125 million being placed in a trust for asbestos claimants, the Washington Examiner reported today. The company’s asbestos personal injury claimants’ committee has asked a bankruptcy judge to reopen the record, claiming the debtors misled and committed a fraud upon the court. The debtors claim that the arguments presented by the committee in its motion provide no sound reason for reopening the estimation record as most arguments have already been rejected by the court. The debtors — which include Garlock, Garrison Litigation Management Group and The Anchor Packing Company — filed their opposition on July 3 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of North Carolina. The action arises out of Judge George Hodges’ Jan. 10 bankruptcy ruling in favor of Garlock, ordering the gasket manufacturer to put $125 million in an asbestos trust — roughly $1 billion less than what plaintiffs’ representatives felt was proper. In his decision, Hodges noted how attorneys had been withholding evidence while pursuing claims against Garlock.

A federal judge yesterday rejected PricewaterhouseCoopers' request to dismiss a $1 billion lawsuit accusing the auditor of providing bad accounting advice that contributed to the October 2011 collapse of MF Global Holdings Ltd., a brokerage run by former New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine, Reuters reported yesterday. U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero rejected PwC's argument that the MF Global's bankruptcy plan administrator, which brought the lawsuit, "stands in the shoes" of the company under the “in pari delicto” legal doctrine, and cannot recover because Corzine and other officials were also to blame for the collapse. Judge Marrero has yet to review other PwC arguments for dismissal, including that the administrator had no authority to sue and did not show that the accounting advice was a "proximate" cause of MF Global's bankruptcy.

A handful of new lawsuits seek to recover more than $1.5 million for defunct brokerage Peregrine Financial Group Inc.'s creditors from the likes of CNBC, MTV and various charitable organizations, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Ira Bodenstein, the trustee leading Peregrine's bankruptcy liquidation, filed the lawsuits against corporate defendants, a university, several nonprofits and two individuals, court papers show. The lawsuits seek to recover funds the defendants received from Peregrine in the months before the brokerage's July 2012 collapse, which was brought on by the exposure of its founder's fraud.

The liquidating trustee of defunct law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf is arguing his clawback suit against two former firm leaders should not be stayed while they face criminal charges because there is little overlap between the criminal and bankruptcy cases — and because every delay diminishes recovery for creditors, the New York Law Journal reported today. "The trustee's urgency in pursuing these claims is heightened by the real risk that [Joel Sanders and Stephen DiCarmine's] assets will dry up while they scramble to defend themselves against the criminal charges and other potential lawsuits," trustee Alan Jacobs said in papers filed July 4 in Southern District Bankruptcy Court. Jacobs is seeking more than $21.8 million from Sanders, the firm's former CFO, and DiCarmine, former executive director, in Jacobs v. DiCarmine, 13-01765. Jacobs claims that the former executives' employment contracts awarded them exorbitant compensation that required nothing in return.

The trustee in charge of Jeffrey Soffer's failed Fontainebleau Las Vegas casino project has struck a settlement that would put more than $83 million of directors and officers insurance money into creditors' pockets, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. In a filing with U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Miami, lawyers for chapter 7 trustee Soneet R. Kapila said that the settlement also removes $675 million in claims against the Fontainebleau estate.

Lawyers for James Merrill, the president and co-owner of TelexFree who is under house arrest awaiting trial on fraud charges, are requesting the release of more than $4 million from frozen bank accounts to fund his legal defense, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Merrill and his partner, who authorities say fled to Brazil, stand accused of running a massive pyramid scheme and face criminal wire-fraud charges in Massachusetts, where their now-bankrupt company is based. In papers filed Tuesday with the U.S. District Court in Worcester, Mass., defense attorneys said that based on the magnitude of the alleged crime, the release of about $4.2 million held in four bank accounts is essential to Merrill's ability to fully defend himself.

LightSquared Inc., Philip Falcone’s wireless broadband company, agreed on tentative terms of a reorganization plan that would give majority ownership to JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), Fortress Investment Group LLC and Cerberus Capital Management LP, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Falcone’s Harbinger Capital Partners LLC would retain a small stake under the plan, which will work only if LightSquared exits bankruptcy by Sept. 30, Joshua Sussberg, a lawyer for a special LightSquared committee, told Bankruptcy Judge Shelley Chapman yesterday. The agreement was reached in mediation following a dispute with creditor Charles Ergen over how his $1 billion in debt would be treated. The plan would be financed with a $1.3 billion first-lien credit facility and the investment of $1.75 billion in new money, Sussberg told Chapman. Cerberus, Fortress and JPMorgan would end up with 74 percent of LightSquared’s new common equity and Harbinger would have 12.5 percent, Sussberg said.