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Robotics vehicle maker Seegrid Corp. has filed for chapter 11 protection after a battle over financing and control of the business left it unable to meet debt obligations, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported today. The Findlay company, founded in 2003 by two Carnegie Mellon University robotic scientists, Hans Moravec and Scott Friedman, has outstanding debt of more than $45 million, according to the filing. The company’s two largest shareholders — O’Hara grocer Giant Eagle and an investment group led by a former Seegrid CEO, Anthony Horbal — headed to court this summer to battle over its future, with both alleging the other was being uncooperative. According to the bankruptcy filing on Tuesday, Seegrid’s board on Sept. 18 approved a restructuring term sheet presented by Giant Eagle that laid out a plan for a prepackaged reorganization plan. The company expects to receive up to $3 million from Giant Eagle to act as bridge financing during the restructuring period. The grocer is also expected to provide additional post-reorganization financing that could give it an even larger share of Seegrid.

A federal judge is set to decide whether to close out the case of a legally troubled oil drilling company in Kentucky, the Associated Press reported yesterday. Bankruptcy Judge Joan Lloyd will take up the case of Mammoth Resource Partners on Nov. 4 during a hearing in Louisville. The trustee for the company, Robert Leasure, filed documents saying that there is no workable plan to bring the company out of bankruptcy as a still-functioning business. Mammoth Resource Partners, based in Cave City, Ky., filed for bankruptcy protection in 2010. The company, owner Roger Cory and Kentucky regulators reached a settlement in 2007 requiring compliance with the law and imposing a $20,000 fine, of which $15,000 was suspended.

Ultura (Oceanside) Inc., a developer of water-treatment products, filed a chapter 11 petition on Oct. 20 in Delaware to sell its membrane business to pre-bankruptcy lender UAC Finance Inc. in exchange for about $25 million of debt, absent a better bid at auction, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. UAC, an affiliate of venture capital investor True North Venture Partners LP, bought the existing senior secured debt from Hercules Technology Growth Capital Inc. in August, according to court papers. If approved at a hearing today, UAC will allow immediate use of cash representing collateral for its secured claims. The lender will later provide a bankruptcy loan of about $2.3 million to fund the chapter 11 effort through a sale, according to court papers.

Specialty Products Holding Corp. and Bondex International Inc. may emerge from bankruptcy reorganization by year-end if the court approves a chapter 11 plan at a confirmation hearing set for Dec. 10, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The two companies are units of Rust-Oleum maker RPM International Inc. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Peter J. Walsh signed an order on Oct. 20 approving the disclosure statement explaining the plan and allowing asbestos personal-injury claimants to vote. Supported by RPM, the asbestos personal-injury committee and the future claimants’ representative, the plan will implement a settlement providing almost $800 million to cover asbestos claims. The settlement was negotiated following a May 2013 ruling by a bankruptcy judge estimating the companies’ asbestos liabilities to be at $1.17 billion.

Apple and GT Advanced Technologies Inc. struck an agreement yesterday that will let GT begin the shutdown of key Arizona operations, and shed some more light on why the former stock market darling abruptly filed for bankruptcy this month, Reuters reported yesterday. A lawyer for GT, Apple's erstwhile sapphire supplier, described the deal at a hearing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Springfield, Mass., saying that it would save the company money and allow it to be more open about its mysterious chapter 11 filing on Oct. 6. Scant details have emerged since the filing, which wiped out most of GT's market value and triggered speculation as to what might have soured its relationship with Apple. It remains unclear how much information GT would get to reveal under Tuesday's agreement, which was described verbally by GT's lawyer but has not been fully outlined in court filings.

LDK Solar Co., the Chinese solar-cell maker that defaulted on its bonds this year, filed for bankruptcy in the U.S. to help carry out restructurings already under way in Hong Kong and the Cayman Islands, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Xinyu, China-based LDK filed for chapter 15 protection yesterday in Wilmington, Del., listing about $1.13 billion in debt and $510 million in assets as of May 31. Affiliates in the U.S., including LDK Solar Systems Inc., sought protection under chapter 11. “Since 2011, the group’s financial performance has significantly deteriorated,” in part due to overcapacity in the solar-cell market, Tammy Fu, a provisional liquidator for the company in Grand Cayman, said in a court filing. LDK is at least the fourth Chinese solar company in little more than a year that has sought bankruptcy or been forced to restructure its debt. Suntech Power Holdings Co., once the world’s largest solar-panel maker, and Zhejiang Topoint Photovoltaic Co. both filed under chapter 15 this year.

The unexpected bankruptcy filing of a defunct Massachusetts company raised the suspicion yesterday of a bankruptcy judge who said that he had "significant doubts" about the legality of the case, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Judge Brendan Shannon punted on the dismissal question Tuesday but ruled that a sale hearing, scheduled to take place today, connected to long-running litigation between Global Naps and Verizon New England Inc. could go forward. Absent Judge Shannon's ruling, the so-called automatic stay triggered by a bankruptcy filing would have prevented the hearing from taking place. Global Naps, a onetime local exchange carrier, has been under a court-appointed receiver's control since 2010 to ensure that it pays a $57.7 million judgment owed to Verizon New England from the lawsuit, which started as a fight over fees.

The losing bidder in a bankruptcy court auction for Atlantic City's former Revel Casino Hotel isn't ready to fold just yet, as an attorney for Florida developer Glenn Straub has filed an appeal in bankruptcy court to try and stop the sale of the Revel to Brookfield Asset Management, the Philadelphia Business Journal reported today. Revel's management chose Brookfield as the winner with a $110 million bid earlier in October. But Straub claimed that the auction was rife with improprieties. "We believe this entire auction was done improperly, from start to finish,” said Straub's attorney Stuart Moskovitz. Among the developer's main complaints was that Revel improperly accepted a bid from Brookfield after a specified deadline. He also claims that Revel's attorneys reneged on an agreement to share information with him on competing bids, and that the casino unjustly held six hours of closed-door meetings on what was supposed to be the first day of bidding.

Military cargo mover National Air Cargo Inc. filed for bankruptcy protection on Friday, citing being hit with a multimillion-dollar legal judgment in an airplane leasing dispute just as the industry began to struggle due to slower business from the U.S. military, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. National Air Cargo executives said that chapter 11 protection will give them time to fix the New York company's "operations and financial performance" while they continue to appeal a $9.9 million award, according to court documents.

Texas tycoon Sam Wyly has filed for bankruptcy, saying that he does not have the assets to pay the nearly $300 million that U.S. regulators are demanding for his role in a fraudulent offshore scheme, Reuters reported yesterday. In documents filed with a U.S. bankruptcy court in Dallas on Sunday, Wyly said that he had between $100 million and $500 million of both assets and liabilities and cited the "massive costs" of fighting civil claims from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as the reason for seeking chapter 11 protection. Last month, U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin in New York ordered Wyly and the estate of his late brother Charles to pay damages of $187.7 million plus interest to the SEC after a jury found them liable for fraud in May. The SEC has since said that the total, including interest, should be $299.4 million, which is one of the largest awards ever sought from individual defendants in a U.S. court.