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Troubled Mexican homebuilder Homex has filed for bankruptcy after gaining the support of a majority of its creditors, Reuters reported yesterday. The company, which has struggled with a heavy debt load and slumping home sales, said that it was seeking additional financing during the bankruptcy proceedings. Mexican homebuilders have been hit hard since the government shifted to a policy in the last few years that gives priority to subsidies for apartment purchases by new home buyers, hurting sales of cheap houses built by Geo, Homex, and Urbi. In March, rival Geo, formerly Mexico's biggest homebuilder, filed for bankruptcy in a deal that replaced most of its debt with stock.

The trustee in charge of the embattled Mt. Gox bitcoin exchange wants its U.S. bankruptcy case to move forward while he works to resolve the company's uncertain future, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Translators for trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi, appointed by a Japanese court, yesterday told a Texas bankruptcy judge that he wants to secure approval of Mt. Gox's chapter 15 case in the U.S., where a deal to save the company originated earlier this week. Investor group Sunlot Holdings has reached a deal with some angry creditors that had sued Mt. Gox, which froze trading accounts and announced that it was missing about 550,000 bitcoins before seeking bankruptcy protection in Japan. Under the deal, creditors that include some Mt. Gox customers would get a 16.5 percent ownership stake in Mt. Gox, split a portion of 200,000 bitcoins that were located in the search and share other bitcoins that may still turn up in the investigation.

Irish Bank Resolution Corp., formed to complete the liquidation of Anglo Irish Bank Corp., asked a U.S. bankruptcy judge to approve the sale of loans with nominal balances totaling more than $19 billion, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The proposed purchasers of the U.S. assets include affiliates of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Deutsche Bank AG and Lone Star Funds, according to an April 22 filing by the liquidator of the nationalized lender in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. Ireland’s government seized the Dublin-based bank in January 2009 as its bad loans soared following the collapse of the nation’s real estate market. IBRC filed for creditor protection in Delaware in August to protect its U.S. holdings during the wind-down. The liquidator, Kieran Wallace, asked the judge to consider approving the loan sales at a May 13 hearing. Ireland’s government put the nationalized lender, Irish Bank Resolution Corp., into liquidation in February last year under a plan to restructure its 34.7 billion-euro ($46.3 billion) bailout.

Tokyo District Court ordered liquidation to begin at failed bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, the company said today, after the bankruptcy administrator said on April 16 that it would be difficult to rehabilitate the firm, Reuters reported. Mt. Gox, once the largest bitcoin exchange in the world, filed for bankruptcy protection on Feb. 28, saying that 750,000 of its customers' bitcoins had been taken from the exchange due to a security flaw in its code, as well as 100,000 belonging to the exchange. It also said that $27 million was missing from its bank accounts. A document uploaded onto its website and signed by bankruptcy administrator, attorney Nobuaki Kobayashi, said that he would conduct an investigation regarding the liability of the representative director of the company, Mark Karpeles, regarding the missing assets. The document also said that a creditors' meeting would take place on July 23, 2014.

The question at oral argument in the case of Republic of Argentina v. NML Capital Ltd. before the Supreme Court yesterday was whether federal courts in the U.S. may issue subpoenas to banks to help creditors who have won judgments against Argentina find assets around the world, the New York Times reported today. Several justices seemed prepared to allow subpoenas for some information, though some of them suggested the creditors’ requests had been too sweeping. Theodore B. Olson, a lawyer for the bondholders in both cases, said that they were entitled to detailed information because Argentina had been disguising and hiding its assets. “If it’s an airline that says Argentine Air Force on the side of it,” he said, “it still could be commercial property. We need to know what those assets are.” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said that request went too far. “Doesn’t that seem pretty extraordinary?” he asked, adding: “That’s pretty intrusive at a sovereign level to say you can find out how many jet fighters Argentina happens to have.” Jonathan I. Blackman, a lawyer for Argentina, said the information sought would also intrude on other matters protected by foreign sovereign immunity.

Mt. Gox, once the world's biggest bitcoin exchange, is likely to be liquidated after a Tokyo court dismissed the company's bid to resuscitate its business, the court-appointed administrator said today, Reuters reported. CEO Mark Karpeles is also likely to be investigated for liability in the collapse of the Tokyo-based firm, the provisional administrator, according to lawyer Nobuaki Kobayashi. Mt. Gox filed for bankruptcy protection from creditors in Japan in late February, saying that it may have lost some 850,000 bitcoins — worth around $454 million at today's rates — due to hacking into its computer system. It later said it had found 200,000 of those bitcoins. In today’s order for provisional administration, the court put the company's assets under Kobayashi's control until bankruptcy proceedings officially commence and a bankruptcy trustee is named.

Canadian payday loan provider Cash Store Financial Services Inc. said yesterday that it will seek protection from creditors as it faces liquidity problems resulting from the suspension of its right to offer loans in the province of Ontario, Reuters reported yesterday. In February, the Edmonton, Alberta-based company said that it was voluntarily delisting its shares from the New York Stock Exchange as its share price had plummeted and it could not meet the exchange's listing requirements. Last month, Cash Store said that it was in talks with some of its creditors to address near-term liquidity issues that arose after its right to offer loans in Ontario, Canada's most populous province, was suspended. The company's share price has fallen nearly 98 percent over the last two years and its Toronto-listed shares closed on Friday at 14 Canadian cents.

Mark Karpeles, the founder of Mt. Gox, said he would not come to the U.S. to answer questions about the Japanese bitcoin exchange's U.S. bankruptcy case, Mt. Gox lawyers told a federal judge yesterday, Reuters reported. In the court filing, Mt. Gox lawyers cited a subpoena from the U.S. Department of Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, which has closely monitored virtual currencies like bitcoin. "Karpeles is now in the process of obtaining counsel to represent him with respect to the FinCEN Subpoena. Until such time as counsel is retained and has an opportunity to 'get up to speed' and advise Karpeles, he is not willing to travel to the U.S.,” the filing said. The subpoena requires Karpeles to appear and provide testimony in Washington, D.C., on Friday.

A creditor sought bankruptcy restructuring for Chaori Solar, the firm that caused ripples in world markets last month with China's first domestic bond default, and the company said on Friday that it had not yet agreed any deal to stay solvent, Reuters reported on Friday. Metals and materials company Shanghai Yihua applied to Shanghai's intermediate court to put the solar equipment company into bankruptcy restructuring, Chaori said in a filing to the Shenzhen stock exchange. "The creditor filed the application because of Chaori Solar's inability to pay the debts due and to stay solvent," Chaori said in the filing, adding that it was uncertain whether the court would accept the application. Chairman Ni Kailu of the company, the full name of which is Shanghai Chaori Solar Energy Science and Technology Co Ltd., has been in talks with several parties to seek funds to help it stay afloat. But it said in a separate announcement that the chairman's efforts have been fruitless so far.

Mt. Gox customers with frozen bitcoin accounts are targeting founder Mark Karpeles, arguing in court papers that he is unfit to lead the Japanese bitcoin exchange through its U.S. bankruptcy case, the Wall Street Journal reported today. In bankruptcy court papers filed on Tuesday, lawyers for several Mt. Gox customers pointed out Karpeles has been accused of fraud and said that he should no longer have power over Mt. Gox's U.S. assets in his official role as Mt. Gox Co.'s foreign representative.