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China Medical Technologies Inc., a maker of diagnostic products, filed for chapter 15 protection listing as much as $500 million in assets and debts, Bloomberg News reported on Friday. China Medical, which makes products to monitor various diseases including cancer, also listed foreign bankruptcy proceedings pending in the Cayman Islands, according to the court petition posted on Friday. "To date, the liquidators have been unable to locate any other CMED assets anywhere in the world outside the Cayman Islands," said Kenneth M. Krys, joint official liquidator, in a court filing.

Sanko Steamship Co., the Japanese operator of 185 ships, asked a court to protect its U.S. assets after the company filed for bankruptcy protection in Japan, Bloomberg News reported today. Sanko listed assets and debt of more than $500 million in a chapter 15 petition filed today. Sanko said yesterday that the Tokyo District Court granted the closely held company permission to keep operating. A trustee will be appointed to oversee a reorganization, the Tokyo-based company said.

Mexican glassmaker Vitro SAB is heading to a U.S. appeals court to save its restructuring at home from an assault by U.S. creditors in a case that could transport the U.S. Bankruptcy Code across the border, Reuters reported yesterday. The case pits one of Monterrey, Mexico's powerful and politically connected "Group of 10" businesses against U.S. hedge funds, which Latin American critics have reviled as "vultures" for their battle against Argentina's sovereign debt restructuring. Many creditors have come to view chapter 15 as little more than a rubber-stamp process that allows U.S. assets to be folded into a foreign proceeding. However, some legal experts say that the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals could improperly recast it as a tool to impose U.S. bankruptcy law abroad. Vitro's appeal stems from a ruling this month by Bankruptcy Judge Harlin Hale, who refused to enforce the company's Mexican restructuring against U.S. hedge funds led by Aurelius Capital Management and Elliott Management Corp. The hedge fund bondholders had said the restructuring plan violated the U.S. Bankruptcy Code by rewarding shareholders before repaying creditors in full.

Bankruptcy Judge Harlin D. Hale yesterday refused to enforce Mexican glass maker Vitro SAB's controversial debt restructuring in a closely watched chapter 15 case that threatened to sever the cross-border business cooperation between the two nation's legal systems, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Judge Hale sided with bondholders in rejecting Vitro's bid, saying that Vitro's Mexican restructuring plan, which extinguishes guarantee claims of the U.S. bondholders, "manifestly contravenes the public policy of the United States and is also precluded from enforcement under...the Bankruptcy Code." Vitro thinks Judge Hale's ruling concerning the third-party releases of the guarantees involves a narrow issue of U.S. law and intends to appeal the ruling.

Vitro SAB is set to learn next week whether it can enforce its Mexican bankruptcy plan in the U.S. after the glassmaker clashed with bondholders in court over the plan, Bloomberg News reported today. Bankruptcy Judge Harlin DeWayne Hale said in court yesterday that he plans to rule on Vitro’s enforcement motion next week, probably by June 13. Vitro, which has won approval for the bankruptcy plan in Mexico, is seeking an order from Judge Hale enforcing the restructuring and stopping litigation by bondholders who have been fighting the plan in the U.S. and Mexico in an effort to collect on $1.2 billion in defaulted bonds.