%1

Bankruptcy Judge Edward Ellington approved the sale of 22 Advantage Rent a Car locations not included in the company's sale to Catalyst Capital Group Inc. earlier this year, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Following a March 17 auction, Avis Budget Group Inc. purchased 12 of the locations for about $6 million, and a subsidiary of Hertz Global Holdings Inc. purchased 10 more locations for about $3.7 million, according to court documents filed Monday. Five other sites received no bids, and another three were deemed not available for auction due to prior agreements with Hertz.

Momentive Performance Materials Inc. said yesterday that it may file for chapter 11 protection and is in talks with stakeholders to restructure the debt of the silicone and quartz producer, Reuters reported yesterday. As of Sept. 30, the company had total liabilities of $4.14 billion, it said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchanges Commission on Tuesday. The unit of Apollo Global Management LLC said that it was unable to file its annual report for the period ended Dec. 31, on March 31.

Textbook publisher Cengage Learning has ended its nine-month bankruptcy, emerging from chapter 11 after reducing its $5.8 billion debt by more than two-thirds, Reuters reported yesterday. Stamford, Conn.-based Cengage said that it cut $4 billion in debt and secured $1.75 billion in new loans to fund its bankruptcy exit. Created in a leveraged buyout led by Apax Partners in 2007, Cengage had been in bankruptcy since July, when it filed with a pre-packaged restructuring in place. Apax, along with Omers Capital Partners, bought Cengage for $7.75 billion from Thomson Reuters Corp., the parent of Reuters. Thomson asserted a $1.46 million unsecured claim against Cengage in its bankruptcy, but Cengage assumed the contract on which the claim was based, meaning Thomson will receive full payment, Cengage said.

The chief executive of Japan's Mt. Gox, once the world's leading bitcoin exchange, was ordered to the U.S. to answer questions related to its U.S. bankruptcy case, filed after the company lost $400 million of customers' digital currency, Reuters reported yesterday. Bankruptcy Judge Stacey Jernigan yesterday ordered Mt. Gox CEO and majority owner Mark Karpeles to appear on April 17 in Dallas at the offices of Baker & McKenzie, the law firm that represents Mt. Gox. Mt. Gox customers want Karpeles to explain why the exchange shut down in February and what happened to their 750,000 bitcoins, which the company said were stolen in a computer hacking attack.

A federal judge is set to decide whether to impose sanctions of up to $44 million against the estate of Anna Nicole Smith’s former stepson, the National Law Journal reported today. The sanctions come in a claim originally filed by E. Pierce Marshall, the son of Smith’s late husband, Texas oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall, against the former Playboy model, who had filed for U.S. bankruptcy protection. The younger Marshall died in 2006 and Smith died of a drug overdose in 2007. Just before a hearing on Monday, U.S. District Judge David Carter in the Central District of California wrote in a tentative order that he had several “open questions” left unresolved as to the scope of sanctions he ordered last year against the younger Marshall’s estate. He has tentatively scheduled a trial on the matter for April 29.

Select Staffing, which provides temporary staffing services in a variety of industries, filed for chapter 11 protection yesterday after reaching a restructuring deal with its lenders, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. The family-owned company is seeking a quick restructuring by way of a pre-packaged chapter 11 plan, for which it has already secured the support of many of the lenders who would own the reorganized company. The plan would raise $225 million in new equity capital and $470 million in new debt to pay its creditors and continue funding its operations.

The partnership behind the failed Foxwoods Casino project in South Philadelphia filed Monday for bankruptcy court protection, citing claims of $23.6 million from 14 creditors, Philly.com reported today. In addition, Citizens Bank, the largest creditor, is owed an unspecified amount, according to the court petition. The partnership last week sold its largest asset, a vacant 16.5-acre lot on South Columbus Boulevard between Tasker and Reed Streets. The property was transferred to developer Bart Blatstein for $13 million. Of the proceeds, $8 million went to the City of Philadelphia to settle a tax bill.

A federal judge in New York has revived a $2.3 billion whistleblower lawsuit aimed at Hawker Beechcraft Corp., reversing a bankruptcy court decision that blocked litigation over allegedly defective parts used in planes sold to the U.S. government, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Judge P. Kevin Castel said former employees of a Hawker Beechcraft subcontractor should get a chance to press their federal False Claims Act case against the manufacturer of military aircraft, which filed for chapter 11 protection in May 2012, emerged in 2013, and was sold to Textron Inc. just weeks ago. The decision, which was issued last week, restores the right of Beechcraft whistleblowers to argue in bankruptcy court that they are entitled to attempt to collect damages on behalf of the government for the alleged fraud, despite the confirmed chapter 11 bankruptcy exit plan.

Nearly a week after former Dewey & LeBoeuf chief operating officer Dennis D’Alessandro’s lawyer spoke about his client’s innocence in the alleged fraud scheme that helped destroy the firm, the trustee overseeing Dewey's bankruptcy case has sued D'Alessandro in a bid to recover nearly $9.3 million for creditors, the American Law Daily reported today. Exhibits attached to the 24-page clawback complaint filed late Friday show that D’Alessandro earned that much as the firm's COO from 2008 until his retirement in June 2011. He averaged $200,000 in annual salary — paid in monthly increments of roughly $35,000 — and another $400,000 in contractual bonuses and trust payments during those years, according to the court filings.

Bank of America Corp. should face U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission claims over $855 million in mortgage-backed securities, said a judge who last week advised that a Justice Department complaint over the same securities should be thrown out, Bloomberg News reported today. U.S. Magistrate Judge David Cayer in Charlotte, N.C., recommended yesterday that Bank of America’s request to dismiss the SEC case be denied. The complaint adequately alleged the bank didn’t disclose in offering documents for the securities that the bulk of the mortgages pooled in them were bought wholesale from third-party brokers, he said. Judge Cayer said in a March 27 recommendation that the Justice Department’s lawsuit seeking to hold Bank of America liable under the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act (FIRREA) should be thrown out. The 1989 law with a 10-year statute of limitations has become a tool for federal prosecutors bringing civil claims for alleged wrongdoing in the buildup to the 2008 financial crisis. The magistrate judge’s findings in both cases will be reviewed by U.S. District Judge Max O. Cogburn Jr. The bank or the government can then appeal any order by Cogburn.