North America

Canadian pulp-and-paper company AbitibiBowater Inc. has filed a Chapter 11 plan of reorganization that proposes to pay its secured debt in full and would hand equity to its unsecured creditors, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. In a press release, AbitibiBowater said it filed the plan Tuesday with both the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., and the Quebec Superior Court in Canada, where the company's U.S. and Canadian units have each sought protection from their creditors.

A former Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. executive on Tuesday disputed a central claim in Lehman's bid to recover billions of dollars from Barclays Plc, saying there was no secret $5 billion discount in the sale of Lehman's core business, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. Lehman and its creditors claim that Barclays reaped a $5 billion windfall in the deal because as part of the transaction, the bank paid $45 billion in cash in exchange for $50.6 billion in securities.

The sell-off in global markets has accelerated amid fears that the eurozone debt crisis would worsen and that China’s recovery is faltering, the Financial Times reported. From Hong Kong to New York, there was mounting concern that the €110bn international rescue package for Greece would not prevent the crisis spreading from Athens to other highly indebted eurozone nations. The euro dropped to a one-year low against the dollar, European shares plumbed two-month lows and the bond markets of weaker eurozone economies fell as rattled investors sold risky assets.

Barclays Plc had “a right to walk away” from a 2008 deal to buy bankrupt Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s brokerage unit and would have if certain assets had been left out, the U.K. bank’s top in-house lawyer said, BusinessWeek reported on a Bloomberg story. “That was clearly in Barclays’s mind at that point in time,” Jonathan Hughes, Barclays’s global general counsel, told a bankruptcy judge in New York today, referring to the bank’s discovery during the negotiations that Lehman couldn’t deliver all the promised assets.

The Canadian media landscape is poised for a major shake-up that could result in greater competition as a result of moves by Shaw Communications Inc. and Torstar Corp. to buy the television and newspaper assets, respectively, of Canwest Global Communications Corp., Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. CanWest has been selling assets as part of its ongoing bankruptcy protection proceedings to pay off its creditors. As part of the deal for Canwest's television operations, Shaw has reached an agreement with Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Calgary's overburdened hospitals have little space to soak up hundreds of extra surgeries should a private clinic at the heart of a legal dispute shut down, leaving patients staring down long wait times for orthopedic procedures, health experts contend, The Calgary Herald reported.

Frankfurt-based aluminum company Almatis Group Friday put its operations in the U.S., Germany and the Netherlands in Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to restructure the company's $1 billion debt load, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. In court papers filed Friday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, Almatis said the proposed restructuring would slash its debt by more than $600 million to $414.6 million. The company has already filed a reorganization plan, which has the support of more than two-thirds of the holders of Almatis's first-lien debt.

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. pressed its case Thursday that former executives of the firm were conflicted as they worked on closing a deal to sell its assets to Barclays Plc in 2008, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. Lehman, which is fighting to recover billions of dollars from Barclays, has claimed top executives working on the sale had conflicted loyalties because they were negotiating new employment contracts with Barclays when they were supposed to be acting on Lehman's behalf.

Dubai International Capital Wednesday sent a letter to senior lenders of German aluminum company Almatis, urging them to vote against a restructuring plan from distressed-debt investor Oaktree Capital, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. The letter comes on the eve of Almatis' management filing to place the company in U.S. Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings as part of Oaktree's restructuring plan to more than halve Almatis' $1 billion debt to around $422 million.

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. continued its court battle Monday to claw back billions of dollars in assets from Barclays Plc, as two witnesses testified that the British bank wasn't supposed to see an immediate gain when it bought Lehman's core U.S. operation in 2008, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. A member of Lehman's board of directors and its former president testified that the deal hammered out following Lehman's historic bankruptcy filing called for Barclays to acquire a pool of assets and an equivalent amount of liabilities when it bought Lehman's broker-dealer unit.