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Showdown Over Power Plants Bonds Jeopardizes Revel Sale

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A showdown between the Atlantic City, N.J.'s shuttered Revel Casino Hotel and the bondholders behind its custom-built power plant is threatening to unravel a $110 million deal to sell the boardwalk resort to a Canadian private-equity firm, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. According to a spokesperson for Brookfield Capital Partners LP, which earlier this year won a bankruptcy auction to buy the property for $110 million, the firm has informed Revel that it plans to pull out of the deal over payments related to the property's custom-built power plant. The power plant, operated by ACR Energy Partners LLC, is located next to the resort and is Revel's only source of both electricity as well as hot water, court papers show.

MMA Railway Trustee Casts Wide Net for Corporations to Pay Lac-Megantic Victims

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Robert Keach, the bankruptcy trustee in the Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway case, is casting a wide net in an effort to reach into deep corporate pockets to create a fund to compensate victims and help pay the enormous costs related to the Lac-Megantic rail disaster in Quebec last year, the Bangor (Maine) Daily News reported today. In September, Keach asked a bankruptcy judge to order nine international companies to turn over all documents that discuss the sale of crude oil obtained from the Bakken Foundation in North Dakota, then shipped by truck and rail into and across Canada. The motion, granted yesterday by Bankruptcy Judge Louis Kornreich, compels ConocoPhillips, Shell Trading U.S. Co., Arrow Midstream Holdings LLC, Enersrco Energy LLC, InCorr Energy Group LLC, Marathon Oil Corp., Oasis Petroleum Inc. and QEP Resources Inc. to turn documents over to the trustee. Keach has asked for any and all communications between the companies to and from the World Services group that owned the oil that was being shipped when the train crashed. Those companies include World Fuel Services Corp.; World Fuel Services Inc.; Western Petroleum Co.; World Fuel Services, Canada, Inc.; and Petroleum Transport Solution Inc. Western Petroleum leased the train cars.

GT Advanced Tech Creditors Chafe at Settlement Deal with Apple

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Creditors of GT Advanced Technologies complained in a bankruptcy court filing that the sapphire company may have gotten too little in its proposed settlement with Apple Inc. over legal claims stemming from a deal to supply sapphire screens, Reuters reported yesterday. GT Advanced's chief operating officer has said in court papers that the iPhone maker pulled a "bait and switch" to force the sapphire maker into a money-losing deal in 2013. GT Advanced shocked investors by filing for bankruptcy in October in a case that was initially shrouded in secrecy due to a confidentiality agreements with Apple. After the bankruptcy filing, Apple agreed to release GT Advanced from the deal and allow it to sell more than 2,000 sapphire furnaces located in Mesa, Arizona. The agreement needs approval by U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Henry Boroff, who has been hearing the chapter 11 case in Springfield, Mass.

Analysis Ex-Billionaire Wyly Bankruptcy Pits Church Against State

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Former billionaire Samuel Wyly’s Dallas church is taking on the might of the U.S. government for a some of the businessman’s remaining fortune, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Wyly, who filed for bankruptcy after losing a fraud lawsuit by the Securities and Exchange Commission, owes $20,000 to the Third Church of Christ, Scientist, under a 2010 pledge to donate $100,000 over five years, the religious organization said in a Nov. 14 filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Dallas. The church, which says it needs the money to finish a building restoration project, argues in the filing that the SEC and the Internal Revenue Service, which seek the most money from Wyly, are trying to silence smaller creditors that can’t match the government’s “unlimited” legal resources.

Falcone Wont Give Up on 2.4 Billion LightSquared Claim

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Billionaire investor Philip Falcone’s Harbinger Capital Partners LLC is appealing a bankruptcy court ruling that derailed his proposal to reorganize LightSquared by canceling a $2.4 billion claim by a group of competing creditors and splitting the company in two, Bloomberg News reported on Friday. When Falcone’s effort failed, creditors including Dish Network Corp. Chairman Charles Ergen reached a deal on a new chapter 11 proposal that would give Ergen 60 percent of the equity in a reorganized LightSquared. Harbinger, LightSquared’s current controlling shareholder, filed a notice of appeal yesterday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, indicating a district court judge in New York will be asked to review the Oct. 30 decision. LightSquared, based in Reston, Va., has been in bankruptcy for more than two years as the company and its lead creditors argue over the best way to reorganize. The company previously narrowed three plans to one, only to be rebuffed by the bankruptcy judge. The new Ergen-led deal, which also gives equity to lender JPMorgan Chase & Co., was the result of all-day mediation on Oct. 31 with a federal judge in Manhattan, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Shelley Chapman said at a Nov. 3 hearing.

Madoff Trustee Strikes 497 Million Deal with Investors in Feeder Funds

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A new legal settlement will bring in nearly $500 million for Bernard Madoff's cheated investors, putting their total recovery to date above $10 billion, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Irving Picard, the court-appointed official tracking down funds stolen in the largest Ponzi scheme ever, on Monday announced that two investment funds — Herald Fund SPC and Primeo Fund — have agreed to return $497 million they received by investing with Madoff. The deal brings the total funds recovered in the liquidation of Madoff's investment firm to more than $10.3 billion, of which nearly $6 billion has been returned to investors. Investors lost $17.3 billion in principal upon the 2008 collapse of Madoff's Ponzi scheme, for which he is now serving a 150-year prison sentence.

New Crumbs Owners Fight to Scrap License Agreements

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When Crumbs Bake Shop Inc. filed for bankruptcy this past summer and sold off the majority of its assets, the company thought it had put to rest a number of licensing agreements that gave third parties the right to sell baked goods under the Crumbs name, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. According to a bankruptcy judge's recent ruling, the sale didn't actually relinquish those rights, and the Crumbs bankruptcy estate can still earn royalties under the agreements. Now, the cupcake chain's new owners — a collaboration between TV personality Marcus Lemonis and Dippin' Dots owner Fischer Enterprises — have appealed the ruling to stop other companies from making money off the Crumbs brand.

Freedom Industries May Clean Less of River Site

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The bankrupt company that leaked a coal processing chemical into Charleston, W.V.’s Elk River in January could reduce the amount of contaminated material it needs to clean from its polluted storage site, the Associated Press reported today. Regulators with the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection revealed an agreement in which Freedom Industries could enter a voluntary toxic cleanup program. Previous agreements required Freedom to remove all contaminated soil and groundwater from the polluted site. The new agreement leaves that option on the table, but also allows Freedom to apply for entry into WVDEP’s Land Restoration Voluntary Remediation Program. In bankruptcy filings, company officials have said the remediation program will be less expensive, lessening its burden for cleaning the site.

Law Firm Files Motion to Dismiss Spokane Dioceses Claims of Mishandled Bankruptcy

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The law firm accused by the Spokane, Wash., diocese of mishandling a 2007 bankruptcy and settlement with clergy sex abuse victims filed a motion to dismiss the diocese's claims on Monday in federal bankruptcy court, the National Catholic Reporter reported yesterday. Based in part on depositions from retired Bishop William Skylstad and Fr. Steven Dublinski, the diocese's previous vicar general, the Monday filing charges that "the current claims are simply an attempt to throw mud at Paine Hamblen to try to get some insurance money." For its work leading to the 2007 settlement, the law firm of Paine Hamblen was ordered to be paid about $3.5 million by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Patty Williams. The Spokesman-Review on Wednesday reported that the diocese "is asking for at least $4 million in damages from the firm after alleging attorneys failed to disclose a conflict of interest in the case and were wrong about how many claims would be made against the church by abuse victims." Paine Hamblen's motion to dismiss was in response to a second effort by the diocese seeking return of bankruptcy attorney fees. A suit was filed in state court in 2012, but it was "removed to federal court and dismissed by a federal judge because the diocese did not file in the federal bankruptcy court" as would have been required, said Jane Brown, managing partner of Paine Hamblen.

Federal Judge Approves Anadarkos Settlement over Tronox

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U.S. District Judge Katherine B. Forrest on Monday approved Anadarko Petroleum Corp.'s $5.15 billion settlement over its ill-fated acquisition of Tronox Inc., the final major hurdle in the federal government's largest environmental settlement ever, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Judge Forrest said that Tronox 's bankruptcy judge was correct earlier this year when he signed off on the deal. Approval from the two judges was necessary for the settlement to be completed. In agreeing with Bankruptcy Judge Allan L. Gropper, Judge Forrest overruled two objections from claimants who thought the settlement was too low or that they deserved a greater share of the proceeds.