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As Crumbs Bake Shop Inc. began its final descent into bankruptcy late last year, the cupcake maker’s newly appointed chief executive, Ed Slezak, implemented a new strategy to help boost the company’s revenue: Sell Crumbs-branded products at everyday stores like Target and BJ’s Wholesale Club, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Crumbs collaborated with companies to create mass-market cupcakes and bake-at-home Crumbs mixes, but the new ventures had only been rolling a few months when Crumbs abruptly closed all its stores and sought Chapter 11 protection in July. Now, with the majority of Crumbs’ assets sold to a partnership between CNBC reality show host Marcus Lemonis and Dippin’ Dots owner Fischer Enterprises that plans to relaunch Crumbs stores, the companies that struck those licensing agreements questioned how to go forward during the bankruptcy proceeding. A bankruptcy judge in New Jersey considered that question yesterday in response to an urgent request from Houston-based Coastal Foods Baking, a commercial bakery that said the Lemonis-Fischer group sent it a cease-and-desist letter Sept. 23 to prevent it from fulfilling new orders for Crumbs-branded baked goods. With hundreds of cupcakes already in the process of being made at the time the letter came, Coastal Foods President and Chief Executive William Evans said in a court filing that it will “have to destroy the food product” and eat $45,850 in costs if Lemonis-Fischer doesn’t back down. Bankruptcy Judge Michael Kaplan told Coastal Foods during a contentious hearing yesterday that it could fill the two new cupcake orders, though any further production must wait until the parties determine whether Coastal Foods still has any rights under the licensing agreement and whether the licensing agreements were included in the bankruptcy sale.

Sweden's Ericsson is preparing to take over Massachusetts-based Ambient Corp., which struggled to sell its "smart grid" technology to power companies, after a bankruptcy judge approved Ericsson's $7.5 million purchase offer last week, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross approved the offer, which came from an Ericsson affiliate, after looking it over at a court hearing on Friday. Ambient filed for bankruptcy on July 28, saying that the company has had a hard time finding buyers for its devices that plug into a utility's power grid to help the utility communicate with electricity users. The largest customer for its data-collection devices has been Duke Energy Corp.

A group of Maine-based creditors has asked a Delaware court to move the bankruptcy case of Great Northern Paper Co. to Maine, where an attorney said 56 percent of the 1,159 creditors are located, the Bangor (Maine) Daily News reported yesterday. But Charles Stanziale, the trustee appointed in the bankruptcy case for GNP, plans to oppose that measure, arguing that he has administered bankruptcies from all over the country. That sets up a dispute with Portland-based attorney Jeremy Fischer, who represents three creditors and has been gathering support to bring the case to Maine from others with an interest in the the East Millinocket paper mill operator’s bankruptcy. Fischer filed a motion late Friday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware, stating that Maine’s attorney general, the towns of East Millinocket and Millinocket and the employees’ unions have indicated support for the change of venue before a scheduled meeting of creditors happens Oct. 15.

A bankruptcy trustee looking to recover money for those affected by a deadly 2013 train derailment has turned his attention to more than a dozen companies that may have played a role in the accident, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. In court filings on Thursday, Robert Keach, the trustee for train operator Montreal Maine & Atlantic Railway Ltd., said that he is seeking information from energy companies Shell Oil Co., ConocoPhillips, InCorr Energy Group and Enserco Energy Inc. to help him determine whether he can pursue legal action against the companies. Keach said that the four filings are "the tip of the iceberg" and that he is speaking with close to 20 companies that either leased tank cars to MM&A or produced the oil being transported.

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. announced on Wednesday that it will take over the defined benefit plan of James River Coal Co., the agency announced Wednesday, PIOnline.com reported yesterday. The Richmond, Va.-based mining operation, which includes 33 subsidiary companies, filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in April in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Richmond. The company sold most of its assets in bankruptcy to Blackhawk Mining LLC following court approval Aug. 28, according to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. Blackhawk Mining is not assuming the pension plan. Participants in the $74 million James River Coal Company Employees' Pension Plan will continue to receive benefits from the company until the PBGC assumes responsibility. PBGC officials estimate that the plan is 61 percent funded, with a shortfall of $47.1 million, of which the PBGC expects to cover $44.6 million. The company's defined benefit plan was terminated as of Aug. 31, 2014.

Bankruptcy Judge Howard Tallmanhas dismissed the case of a Denver marijuana business owner, saying that although his activities are legal under Colorado law, he is violating the federal Controlled Substances Act, the Denver Post reported yesterday. The case is at least the second such one involving a marijuana business tossed out of bankruptcy court in Colorado. At least two others have been dismissed in California. Judge Tallman made a similar decision in a 2012 case involving Rent-Rite Super Kegs West Ltd, a company that operated a warehouse partially rented to a tenant cultivating marijuana. "Violations of federal law create significant impediments to the debtors' ability to seek relief from their debts under federal bankruptcy laws in a federal bankruptcy court," Tallman wrote in his decision.

A bankruptcy judge in West Virginia told the company behind a disastrous chemical spill on the Elk River that it must prioritize its dwindling resources to clean up the site of the contamination while holding down its legal expenses, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Freedom Industries Inc. was in court on Tuesday to answer "serious questions" raised by Bankruptcy Judge Ronald Pearson after the company suggested that it would walk away from the cleanup of the spill site. "We're going to have to prioritize from this point forward how we use the limited resources that are available," Judge Pearson said at the hearing on Tuesday. "I'd like to make sure that everyone in the case understands that what we're going to go do first is we're going to get things cleaned up and we're going to cover those expenses."

Atlantic City, N.J., will have to wait until next week to learn who will emerge as the next owner of the shuttered Revel casino hotel, a sleek resort that closed after just two years in operation, Reuters reported yesterday. An auction began yesterday at a law office but was adjourned until Tuesday, according to Revel spokeswoman Lisa Johnson. Glenn Straub, a Florida developer with a passion for polo, provided the initial bid at $90 million in cash to acquire the complex free of debt. At least two other potential buyers presented bids on Tuesday, a source told Reuters. It is unclear how many parties qualified to join the auction.

Phoenix Payment Systems Inc. won bankruptcy-court approval to sell its payment-processing business to an affiliate of North American Bancard LLC for $50 million, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Bankruptcy Judge Mary F. Walrath on Tuesday approved the sale, court papers show. The buyer was the stalking-horse bidder for a proposed auction, but Phoenix Payment Systems canceled the auction after no qualified competing bidders emerged.

Nortel Networks Corp. bondholders and pensioners made their final pleas to judges in Canada and the U.S. about how to divide more than $7 billion in cash the company raised by liquidating assets, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. U.S. bondholders of the defunct phone maker urged the two judges to focus on legal precedents, regardless of the effect on 56,000 Nortel retirees in Canada and the U.K. The pensioners, who are fighting each other as well as the bondholders, asked the judges to impose a fair division that avoids the “extreme outcome” of paying 11 percent on some retiree claims and more than 100 percent to some U.S. investors. With their courtrooms linked by video, Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross in Wilmington, Delaware, and Frank Newbould, a judge on the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Toronto held a three-day joint hearing. They will rule separately on how to divide the money. Judges Gross and Newbould asked the lawyers whether any parties would object if the judges decide to talk to each other about the case. Under Canadian and U.S. law, they are required to reach independent decisions.