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Savient Pharmaceuticals Inc. plans to sell its drug portfolio, including the gout treatment Krystexxa, to Crealta Pharmaceuticals LLC for $120.4 million, pending bankruptcy court approval, the Associated Press reported yesterday. Savient, based in Bridgewater, N.J., filed for chapter 11 protection in October. It said yesterday that the deal with Crealta was reached following bankruptcy court-approved auction. The companies will seek required court approval for the sale on Friday.

Two major investors who bought some of the $540 million worth of U.S. bonds issued by Chinese solar-panel maker Suntech Power Holdings Co. are fighting a bid by a smaller group of bond investors to force the company into bankruptcy, Dow Jones Newswires reported today. Investment firms Clearwater Capital Partners LLC and a Spinnaker Capital Group affiliate told a bankruptcy judge on Monday that allowing the chapter 7 bankruptcy for Suntech to move forward would result in a smaller recovery than under the restructuring plan that's in the works for the company, which was once the world's largest solar panel maker, according to papers filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan.

Fisker Automotive Holdings Inc. looked to convince a bankruptcy judge yesterday that its chapter 11 should proceed at a rapid pace, Reuters reported yesterday. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross began yesterday's hearing by suggesting that the company should slow down its plan to sell its assets to Hong Kong tycoon Richard Li and give creditors four more weeks to get a handle on the situation. "I'm not sure why another few weeks relatively speaking would harm this process," Judge Gross said. "It would allow time for the creditors' committee to continue and complete its investigations." Fisker filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 22 and a creditors' committee was formed only on Thursday. The company has not produced a car in almost 18 months and the judge said that there was no business that needed to be rescued through the breathing space of bankruptcy. Judge Gross gave his approval during the hearing yesterday to a provisional disclosure statement explaining Fisker's repayment plan, which will be sent to creditors to guide their vote. Gross scheduled a hearing for Jan. 3 at which he will decide if the plan of reorganization should be approved by the court, and also to approve the sale of the company's assets.

Creditors of Death Row Records and Marion “Suge” Knight may soon see their first payment in nearly eight years, although one obstacle could come from rapper Dr. Dre, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Lawyers representing the rapper, whose given name is Andre Young, recently notified a bankruptcy judge that they’d file a $3 million claim on the rapper’s behalf in the bankruptcy cases of the record label and its founder, Mr. Knight. The claim seeks payment for records sold during the bankruptcy case, according to court papers. Dr. Dre’s lawyers said that they’d ask that the claim be paid ahead of those of other creditors, which they acknowledged could “significantly impact” an ongoing effort to get a payment out to those creditors soon. R. Todd Neilson, the bankruptcy trustee overseeing the liquidations of Death Row and Mr. Knight, is slated to ask a Los Angeles bankruptcy judge next week for permission to distribute more than $4 million to creditors, among them the mother of deceased rapper Tupac Shakur.

Catalyst Capital Group Inc. won a bankruptcy auction for Advantage Rent a Car, whose future has been under the microscope since it became a crucial part of antitrust regulators’ decision to bless the merger of two major car-rental firms last year, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The Canadian private-equity firm beat out German rental car company Sixt SE at Monday’s auction, agreeing to forgive up to $46 million in debt it extended to fund Advantage’s chapter 11 case. Advantage filed for bankruptcy protection just months after Hertz Global Holdings Inc. shed the chain so that it could buy Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group Inc. Looking to preserve competition in the highly concentrated $24 billion U.S. car rental industry, the Federal Trade Commission required Hertz to divest Advantage to complete the $2.3 billion purchase of Dollar Thrifty. But just months after the government settlement was reached, Advantage filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection with plans to sell itself to the highest bidder.

Bankruptcy Judge Shelley C. Chapman yesterday allowed LightSquared to move forward with its lawsuit against Dish Network Corp. and Chairman Charlie Ergen over his purchases of LightSquared debt before Dish bid for the wireless satellite company's assets, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Judge Chapman denied a bid by Dish and Ergen to dismiss the suit, allowing LightSquared to go after Ergen on its charge that he bought the debt on behalf of Dish and not himself. Such purchases would have been illegal under LightSquared's credit agreement, which prohibited competitors from buying the debt.

U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff said in a decision yesterday that the trustee seeking money for Bernard Madoff's victims may be unable to pursue some claims against investment firms that fed client funds into the swindler's Ponzi scheme, Reuters reported yesterday. Judge Rakoff also said that trustee Irving Picard could not pursue "unjust enrichment" claims against spouses of Madoff's sons Andrew and Mark, saying the women did not qualify as "insiders" who could be held liable for fraud. The decision dated Dec. 5 is a setback for the recovery efforts of Picard, who is liquidating at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC and has said Madoff's fraud caused investors to lose $17.3 billion of principal. Picard has recovered $9.5 billion, of which he has paid out a little over half. Madoff was arrested nearly five years ago, on Dec. 11, 2008, and is serving a 150-year prison term.

A fight for control of a Texas oil refinery between Palm Beach billionaire Harry Sargeant III and members of his family has forced their jointly owned company, Trigeant Ltd., into bankruptcy, the Wall Street Journal reported today. On one side of the dispute is Mr. Sargeant III, a former Marine fighter pilot turned shipping magnate and asphalt mogul. On the other are Sargeant's two brothers, Daniel and James, and his father, Harry Sargeant II, who put Trigeant into chapter 11 last week in Florida. Together the Sargeant family owns Trigeant, which provides fuel and asphalt products to the housing and transportation industries. Mr. Sargeant III's father and two brothers, who own 70 percent of the company, removed himfrom his position as manager in February. The family says Sargeant III, who has a $22 million lien against the plant through a company he controls called BTB Refining LLC, is attempting to prevent the refinery from operating in an effort to lower its value and obtain ownership of it.

Northern Beef Packers LP is set to sell its assets to White Oak Global Advisors for $44.3 million, after that sale received the bankruptcy court's blessing on Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. Bankruptcy Judge Charles Nail Jr. of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Aberdeen, S.D., approved the San Francisco-based firm's offer of $4.8 million in cash and $39.5 million in debt forgiveness, according to court documents. American Foods Group LLC also submitted a qualified offer of $12.7 million in cash, but White Oak was deemed the successful bidder. Northern Beef Packers filed for chapter 11 protection in July with a plan to sell its assets, after suspending operations at its South Dakota meat packing plant.

Two former executives at Furniture Brands International Inc., which recently found a buyer to take it out of bankruptcy, are trying to spend part of a $15 million insurance policy while they defend the statements they made to shareholders as the company's struggles intensified earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal reported today. An attorney for former Chief Executive Ralph P. Scozzafava and former Chief Financial Officer Vance Johnston asked in a court filing that the St. Louis-based furniture maker's bankruptcy judge for permission to spend the pot of insurance money on legal costs related to several shareholder lawsuits. That insurance policy promised to cover losses "arising from any securities claim" against the company, the executives' lawyers added. Before the company filed for bankruptcy in September, several shareholders sued the two men, accusing them of making positive statements that didn't reflect the problems within its wholesale business or other liquidity issues, according to one of the lawsuit. The misleading statements, the lawsuit argued, caused some of the company's shareholders to suffer "significant losses and damages." An attorney for the two men denied the allegations and said he plans to ask for the lawsuit to be dismissed.