Canada

Shaw Communications Inc on Wednesday won court approval for its C$2 billion purchase of Canwest Global's broadcast arm after it agreed to provide C$11 million to shareholders who had complained of being shut out of the deal, Reuters reported. The amended agreement, approved by Ontario Superior Court Judge Sarah Peppal, followed last-ditch negotiations that began early Tuesday and ran late into the night before resuming on Wednesday.

A legal dispute over Shaw Communications Inc's takeover of Canwest Global Communications' broadcast assets that shareholders say leaves them empty-handed continued into the evening on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The two sides hope to hammer out a deal that can be finalized in a hearing on Wednesday, David Byers, a lawyer for the court-appointed monitor for the CanWest bankruptcy and sale, told Toronto Superior Court on Tuesday. Shaw was in court to get approval for its purchase of Canwest's bankrupt TV assets.

Nortel Networks Corp. has moved to shut off health care to retirees and payments to disabled employees in the U.S. as it prepares to distribute $2.8 billion in cash and deal with patents that could be worth another $1 billion, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. Papers filed recently in a U.S. Bankruptcy Court say the former telecommunications equipment giant wants to end health care and life insurance benefits on Aug. 31 for more than 4,000 retired people or their dependents, and cut off long-term disability payments to another 280 people.

Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd., a key contributor to AbitibiBowater Inc.'s proposed $500 million bankruptcy-exit financing package, refused to move forward with the deal after a bankruptcy judge said the company couldn't grant the investor immunity from a possible legal challenge, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. Fairfax and two other AbitibiBowater bondholders that were to backstop a debt offering walked away from the deal this weekend, causing the newsprint maker to scramble for other options, said company attorney Kelley A.

A bankruptcy judge on Friday refused to approve a $500 million financing deal for AbitibiBowater Inc. as long as that deal grants key investor Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. immunity from a possible legal challenge, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. Judge Kevin J. Carey of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., said he would approve the financing deal, which AbitibiBowater claims is essential to its effort to raise more than $1 billion to fund it emergence from Chapter 11, if the company dropped the Fairfax release.

Movie Gallery Inc. said Wednesday that its Canadian subsidiary has begun liquidating all 181 of its video rental stores, including 50 stores that were potentially up for sale but no longer are, Bloomberg BusinessWeek reported on an Associated Press story. Net proceeds from the sale of inventory worth an estimated 48 million Canadian dollars ($47 million) will be used to fund a proposal by the company to pay its Canadian creditors, including landlords and employees, Movie Gallery said. The Canadian unit, Movie Gallery Canada Inc., is not in bankruptcy proceedings.

An attempt by an ad hoc group of disgruntled shareholders to derail the takeover of Canwest Global Communications Inc. is “misguided” and their petition for a re-auction of the broadcaster’s assets “must be rejected,” declared the Winnipeg-based company in a court filing, the National Post reported.

The newspapers owned by CanWest Global Communications Corp. have received approval from creditors on a plan to emerge from restructuring, The Globe and Mail reported. The company’s unsecured creditors met in downtown Toronto on Monday morning, and an overwhelming majority voted for the plan: 97.36 per cent of the votes cast were in favour. Last week, in preparation for the meeting, the plan for the newspaper division was modified so that the new company would emerge from creditor protection with less debt.

Canwest Global Communications Inc., the Canadian media company in bankruptcy protection, agreed to pay as much as C$7.5 million ($7.1 million) to settle a group suit by freelance writers who claimed republication of their work on the Internet broke copyright laws, BusinessWeek reported on a Bloomberg story. Because the company is in bankruptcy protection, the writers will be allowed to file a claim for the settlement amount and share in the distribution to creditors, either in cash or shares of a new company, said Peter Osborne, lawyer for Canwest’s management directors.

Two noteholders are protesting AbitibiBowater Inc.'s bid to hold a rights offering, saying the move is unnecessary and could actually be detrimental to the newsprint manufacturer and its creditors, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. Aurelius Capital Management and Contrarian Capital Management LLC - as well as Wilmington Trust Co., which serves as the indenture trustee of the notes - are objecting to the company's request to auction off the rights to fund its exit from bankruptcy. In papers filed Monday with the U.S.