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Questions about the safety of its California lead-recycling operation continue to haunt Exide Technologies Inc., a battery maker operating under bankruptcy protection, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. The company last week agreed to allow a $40 million lawsuit filed by the South Coast Air Quality Management District to move ahead in spite of the chapter 11 bankruptcy shield that protects companies from being targeted in litigation. The California agency, which regulates air quality in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, says that Exide's operation means an elevated risk of cancer for workers and residents in Vernon, Calif.

Mach Gen LLC won bankruptcy-court approval to tap a $200 million financing package from the lenders who are standing by to fund the electricity generator's exit from chapter 11 protection, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Bankruptcy Judge Peter Walsh on Wednesday authorized Mach Gen to tap into at least $55.7 million of the $200 million bankruptcy financing package from senior lenders including Beal Bank USA, court papers show. While Judge Walsh presided over Wednesday's hearing, Mach Gen's bankruptcy case has been assigned to Judge Mary F. Walrath. She will consider approving the full bankruptcy financing package at a March 28 hearing. The lenders, owed $627 million on loans they extended Mach Gen before its bankruptcy filing, have agreed to fund the chapter 11 case as well as convert all of their debt into a bankruptcy-exit facility.

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee has for the first time outlined the details of a payment process that, if approved, could provide counseling and therapy to hundreds of individuals who allege they were sexually abused by the archdiocese's priests, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. In a document filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Milwaukee, the archdiocese spelled out specific procedures that will allow eligible holders of sexual-abuse claims to access a $500,000 trust, established as part of a larger restructuring plan, to fund counseling for the victims' lifetime.

Three former top executives from the bankrupt U.S. law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf are expected to be hit with criminal charges today related to their alleged misleading of lawyers and banks about the firm's financial straits, Reuters reported today. Indictments are set to be unsealed in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan against former Dewey Chairman Steven Davis, former Executive Director Stephen DiCarmine, and former Chief Financial Officer Joel Sanders. The Manhattan District Attorney has been investigating the executives since around April 2012, when a group of Dewey & LeBoeuf partners asked the prosecutor's office to examine "financial irregularities" at the firm. It could not be learned what the specific charges against the three are, though sources said that they involve felonies.

California nursing home operator Country Villa Health Services, the target of a number of pending class-action lawsuits, has filed for chapter 11 protection, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The company, which operates 19 nursing homes and assisted living centers in Southern California, sought chapter 11 protection on Tuesday along with more than a dozen of its health care affiliates in bankruptcy court. Chief Executive Stephen Reissman said Wednesday that while the business has been facing cash flow pressures in recent months, its legal issues were the primary cause of the chapter 11 filing. "The dagger in the heart is that we have been overwhelmed by a wave of class-action lawsuits," said Reissman.

USEC Inc. filed for bankruptcy after struggling with weak prices for the enriched uranium it supplies to nuclear power plants and difficulties in financing a major project, Reuters reported today. Prices for low-enriched uranium have plummeted more than 30 percent since March 2011, when a tsunami wrecked four nuclear reactors in Japan. Demand for nuclear fuel remains weak, with more than 50 reactors going off line in Japan and Germany since the tsunami. USEC has also been hit by delays in securing funding for its American Centrifuge Project in Ohio. The company was banking on production from the project after it ceased enriching uranium at two gaseous diffusion plants leased from the Department of Energy. USEC has spent about $2.5 billion to develop the plant and needs more than $4 billion to complete it, the company said in its bankruptcy filing. The company sought a $2 billion loan guarantee from the DOE, but the government proposed a cost-sharing program to demonstrate the capability of the centrifuge technology. The $350 million research and development program, 80 percent funded by DOE, has been extended through April 15.

Bankruptcy Judge Ronald G. Pearson authorized Freedom Industries Inc., the company behind the West Virginia chemical spill, to continue cooperating with a federal grand jury investigation of the spill, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Judge Pearson specifically authorized Freedom to hire a digital investigations firm to help it gather and preserve electronic records in connection with the probe, court papers show. In its request to hire Vestige Ltd., Freedom said that it has been “coordinating with the relevant government agencies in good faith to comply with all of the electronic document requests.” Hiring Vestige at the quoted cost of $42,555 would allow it to continue cooperating with the probe and avoid “further legal action and/or sanctions from the governmental agencies and/or this court,” Freedom said. In addition to the grand jury subpoena from the U.S. Department of Justice, Freedom disclosed it has also faced document requests from West Virginia’s attorney general, among others.

Longview Power LLC won approval yesterday of a key settlement with affiliates of German engineering firm Foster Wheeler AG, which has agreed to fix the boiler that has kept Longview's power plant from operating at full capacity, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Bankruptcy Judge Brendan Shannon approved the pact over the protests of two other contractors involved in building the troubled plant: an affiliate of Norwegian construction company Kvaerner ASA and Siemens Energy Inc., a unit of Siemens AG.

Electricity generator Mach Gen LLC filed for chapter 11 protection yesterday as shrinking power demand and lower energy and capacity margins hurt the company, Reuters reported yesterday. The Athens, N.Y.-based company, owned by affiliates of Credit Suisse Group AG and Bank of America Corp. among others, said that regulatory hurdles that halted the sale of its Harquahala Facility in 2013 meant it could not cut debt. As of Dec. 31, 2013, Mach Gen's unaudited balance sheet reflected assets of about $750 million and liabilities of about $1.6 billion, it said. The company said that a majority of its stakeholders had agreed to a prepackaged plan of reorganization, which would give its second-lien debt holders 93.5 percent of the restructured company and reduce about $1 billion of debt.

Company officials put Noble Logistics into chapter 11 protection on Friday, stating that the Houston-based company is running low on money and already owes about $18.8 million to lenders, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Noble Logistics said that it has struggled with "significant" litigation costs but asked for permission to spend part of a $2.6 million bankruptcy loan to pay the contractors and keep the business alive.