Many Blockbuster Canada stores are expected to close in the coming weeks and the rest will soon be put up for sale, the group overseeing the struggling chain’s receivership proceedings said Tuesday, the Toronto Sun reported. Grant Thornton Ltd., was appointed Blockbuster Canada Co.’s receiver earlier this month by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. Some stores will be consolidated, but the majority of Blockbuster’s some 400 Canadian outlets will continue to operate as usual while Grant Thornton seeks potential buyers.

Karlsen Shipping Co. Ltd. was placed in receivership Tuesday and the Halifax tour operator’s prized cruise ship, M/V Polar Star, remains tied up in Spain until authorities on either side of the Atlantic can reach an agreement on its future, The Chronicle Herald reported. It took Justice Arthur LeBlanc only a few moments to grant a receivership request from the Toronto-Dominion Bank during a Nova Scotia Supreme Court proceeding prompted by the shipping company’s inability to settle a $1.4-million repair bill. Polar Star had a collision with an iceberg in the Antarctic in January.

The US Justice Department sued German giant Deutsche Bank Tuesday for more than $1 billion for mortgage fraud, saying the bank illegally obtained government insurance for substandard mortgages during the US housing boom, Agence France-Presse reported. Deutsche Bank and its subsidiary MortgageIT "repeatedly lied to be included in a government program to select mortgages for insurance by the government," the Justice Department complaint said.

A Mexican court threw out an involuntary bankruptcy proceeding against glassmaker Vitro on Friday, easing the way for its own prepackaged bankruptcy to proceed, the company said on Monday, Reuters reported. The court in Monterrey, where the company is based, ruled on Friday against the involuntary bankruptcy petition filed by creditors, but made its decision public on Monday. Vitro, which has been fighting with creditors over its plans to restructure about $3.4 billion in debt, filed its own bankruptcy plan in December.

Nortel Networks Corp. said Monday it has received court approval for a $900-million "stalking horse" bid by Google for the company's remaining patents and patent applications, the Winnipeg Free Press reported on a Canadian Press story. Qualified bidders hoping to top the Google offer will be required to submit offers by June 13, while the auction is set for June 20. The winning bid will require approval by the U.S. and Canadian courts overseeing the sale process.

Nortel Networks Corp.'s European units are pressing more than $10 billion worth of claims against their Canadian parent, including a claim for $4.6 billion worth of damages for alleged mismanagement under French law, court documents say, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. The intercompany claims were listed in a report filed publicly Thursday by Ernst & Young, monitor of Nortel's Canadian insolvency proceeding. The demands for payment from Nortel's European units are enough to double the size of the claims filed in the Canadian case, the report, filed with the U.S.

Nortel Networks Corp. is taking its multi-billion-dollar global intercompany cash fight public in June, the lead bankruptcy lawyer for the liquidating telecommunications company said Tuesday, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. Behind-the-scenes efforts have failed to resolve disputes over which part of Nortel gets how much of the nearly $4 billion being raised in the breakup of the company, so Nortel is turning to the courts in Canada and the U.S., said the attorney, James Bromley, who is with Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton.

A fund controlled by billionaire investor Len Blavatnik has been asked to return EUR100 million ($145.8 million) to the bankruptcy estate of chemical giant LyondellBasell Industries, which emerged from Chapter 11 protection last year but left a trustee to file lawsuits to recover funds for the company's unsecured creditors, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. In a lawsuit filed Friday with the U.S.

Quebec-based forestry company Tembec Inc. is liquidating its U.S. subsidiary, nearly four years after shuttering its Louisiana coated paper mill, The Canadian Press reported. Tembec USA, a division of the company that no longer has any operating assets, has applied to a U.S. bankruptcy court for Chapter 7 protection, Tembec announced Monday. Unlike Chapter 11, this section is designed for companies seeking liquidation rather than restructuring. Tembec said its U.S. division has US$81 million in debt and assets worth $1 million.

Vitro SAB’s massive bankruptcy case, which spans two countries and has played out in at least six courts, has one simple purpose, say the company’s bondholders: keep Mexico’s Sada family at the helm of the glass maker, the Bankruptcy Beat blog reported. The reorganization plan that Vitro is pursuing in Mexico would force bondholders to accept a $650 million loss on their investment while leaving the company’s stockholders, including the Sadas, virtually untouched, said John Cunningham, an attorney for the bondholders, at a hearing held Wednesday in the U.S.