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The trust representing creditors of the bankruptcy General Motors Corp. estate asked a federal judge to reject efforts by “new GM” to pay ignition switch claims using funds set aside for creditors of the “old” Detroit automaker that filed for bankruptcy in 2009, the Detroit News reported today. “These issues will be decided by bankruptcy court,” GM spokesman James Cain said. “Our motion to enforce the sale order sets forth the company’s positions on these issues, which we continue to believe are correct.” Detroit-based General Motors Co. emerged from bankruptcy in July 2009 as a new government-sponsored firm created from the “good assets” of the 100-year-old automaker. The old company remains in bankruptcy as does GM’s liability for incidents before the filing. GM has been sued more than 170 times seeking billions of dollars including for the reduced value of GM cars after its recall of 2.6 million older cars linked to 42 deaths and 58 injuries for ignition switch defects. In May, the company agreed to pay a record-setting $35 million fine to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for delaying disclosure of the deadly defects for a decade. It also agreed to intense oversight of up to three years by the agency.

Nearly $600 million worth of settlements to benefit victims of Bernard Madoff ’s massive Ponzi scheme on Wednesday won the blessing of a bankruptcy judge, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. The settlements, approved by Judge Stuart Bernstein, include a $95 million deal struck with Senator Fund SPC and a $497 million deal to collect money from Herald Fund SPC and Primeo Fund. All of the funds had invested with Madoff, who is currently serving a 150-year prison sentence. Irving Picard, the official tasked with paying back Madoff’s victims, has to date collected or reached deals to collect approximately $10.5 billion of the $17.3 billion in principal that investors lost upon the 2008 collapse of the Ponzi scheme. Of the recovered funds, more than $5 billion has been returned to investors.

Binder & Binder, one of the largest social security disability firms in the U.S., filed yesterday for chapter 11 protection, Reuters reported today. The firm listed assets and liabilities of between $10 million and $50 million in its bankruptcy filing. Binder & Binder, founded by brothers Harry and Charles Binder in 1975, represents people seeking disability benefits from the government. U.S. Bank National Association and Capital One have agreed to provide debtor-in-possession financing of up to $26 million, the filings showed.

Dutch carmaker Spyker has filed for bankruptcy due to insufficient funds from a bridge loan, Automobile Magazine reported yesterday. Spyker Companies, which also includes subsidiaries Spyker Automobielen and Spyker Events & Branding, had been losing money ever since its deal to purchase Saab from General Motors fell through in 2012. When General Motors announced it would close the Saab brand in 2009, Spyker stepped in to buy out the company, and the sale went through in 2010. The two companies intended to continue production of Saab cars in Sweden. After Saab began to lose money, Spyker was unable to compensate for losses, and Saab filed for bankruptcy in 2011. Spyker filed a lawsuit after this claiming that GM took action against the Saab-Spyker deal, but the claim was dismissed, and Saab was then sold off to a Chinese company that eventually formed National Electric Vehicle Sweden. A few other deals with various partners fell through, and Spyker continued to lose money until reports surfaced last month that it could not pay its bills and was in danger of eviction from its factory in the Netherlands. Now, the bankruptcy filing is a result of this inability to pay, as Spyker’s statement says that “committed bridge funding did unfortunately not reach the company in time.”

Filing for bankruptcy was supposed to protect Aereo Inc. from broadcasters that killed the TV-streaming company's business after years of litigation. Instead, it has only intensified the fighting, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Aereo, which allowed users to watch and record broadcast TV through the Internet, halted its services in June after the U.S. Supreme Court determined the company was unlawfully exploiting the copyrighted works of major broadcasters without permission or payment. Aereo is down to 12 employees and $3.6 million in cash, an amount it hopes will last long enough to pull off some kind of sale.

A $1 billion pact between Nortel Networks Corp.'s U.S. unit and bondholders won court approval Thursday over the protests of the one-time Canadian technology giant, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The ruling from Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross means distressed-debt investors could stand to recover as much as $5 billion from Nortel’s collapse in 2009, including more than $1 billion in interest on $4 billion worth of debt. The Canadian parent company tried to derail the deal between Nortel U.S. and bondholders, arguing the settlement was the product of a defective process. The U.S. unit defended the settlement as a compromise on a claim for interest that could have reached $1.6 billion.

The chapter 11 trustee in the Creative Recycling Systems' bankruptcy case has filed a notice for voluntary conversion to chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation, the Tampa Bay Business Journal reported yesterday. The Tampa e-waste recycler filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in late August, after Regions Bank sued the company earlier this year for more than $18 million. The company has since closed all of its facilities around the country and laid off hundreds of employees. Recently, the judge in the case in the U.S. Middle District of Florida ordered that the company could abandon all property burdensome to the estate.

A bankruptcy judge yesterday cleared cancer-drug maker Dendreon Corp. to pursue a sale in case such a deal yields more money for its creditors than a restructuring led by its bondholders, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Bankruptcy Judge Peter Walsh authorized Dendreon to put itself up for sale at an auction early next year, where bidders will have to offer more than $275 million to have a shot at acquiring the maker of prostate cancer drug Provenge. If no bidders are willing to offer that much, Dendreon hopes to proceed with a restructuring in which unsecured bondholders owed $620 million could trade their debt for equity in the reorganized company. Two large groups of Dendreon’s bondholders agreed to the terms of such a restructuring before the company sought chapter 11 protection last month. Those agreements, however, came under fire yesterday by the U.S. Trustee’s office. U.S. Trustee trial attorney David Buchbinder argued that the restructuring plan support agreements not only propose to treat some creditors better than others but also could provide for the improper payment of the noteholders’ attorneys and advisers.

Unsecured noteholders who were at one point in line to be some of the biggest winners in Energy Future Holdings Corp.'s bankruptcy are now facing a lawsuit from units of the debt-laden Texas energy company, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. The suit asks a judge to rule that a group of investors including Avenue Capital Group, York Capital Management and GSO Capital Partners aren't entitled to a premium or post-petition interest when their debt is paid.

A former Freedom Industries Inc. president was charged for the second time this month in connection with a West Virginia chemical spill that contaminated water for 300,000 residents, this time in an indictment accusing him and three company officials with polluting the Elk River near Charleston, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Federal prosecutors also announced separate charges today against two other people, a plant manager and environmental consultant, for violating the federal Clean Water Act. The leak from one of Freedom’s tanks sent about 7,500 gallons (28,400 liters) of a cleaning agent used in coal-mining operations into the river, contaminating drinking water in the state’s largest city and sending more than 100 residents to the hospital. Earlier this month, Gary Southern, Freedom’s former president, was accused by the government of lying in the company’s bankruptcy filing, which was triggered by lawsuits following the spill.