Mexican glassmaker Vitro said on Monday it had begun a legal process to recover up to $1.59 billion in damages from hedge funds who sued the company in Mexico but lost on appeal, Reuters reported. Vitro went through a $3.4 billion bankruptcy reorganization in Mexico, but some creditors strenuously opposed that plan, and they have been fighting in U.S. courts. Vitro said in a statement that it could collect damages from a trust that has been holding new bonds and payments that correspond to investors who opposed the Mexican restructuring.
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PT Berlian Laju Tanker Tbk creditors, with a combined total of about $125.5 million in claims, filed an involuntary Chapter 11 petition against the Indonesian ship operator, Bloomberg reported. Gramercy Distressed Opportunity Fund II, Gramercy Distressed Opportunity Fund, and Gramercy Emerging Markets Fund, all located in Greenwich, Connecticut, filed today in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, according to court papers.
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US And UK Unveil Failing Banks Plan

US and UK regulators will unveil the first cross-border plans to deal with failing global banks on Monday, outlining proposals to force shareholders and creditors on both sides of the Atlantic to take losses and to ensure sufficient capital exists in the banks’ headquarters to protect taxpayers. Writing in the Financial Times, Martin Gruenberg, chairman of the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and Paul Tucker, deputy governor of the Bank of England, say this represents the first concrete steps to end the “too big to fail” problem of large international banks.
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Newfoundland and Labrador called on the Harper government Friday to change corporate bankruptcy laws after it lost a major environmental appeal before the Supreme Court of Canada, the Canadian Press reported. The province failed in its bid to force the newsprint giant, formerly known as AbitibiBowater Inc., to pay for an environmental cleanup, as the Supreme Court sided with the company in a 7-2 ruling. The province's attorney general called for legislative changes after Friday's ruling, which acknowledged the so-called "polluter pay" principle.
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China's largest maker of auto parts won a politically sensitive auction for A123 Systems Inc, a bankrupt maker of batteries for electric cars that was funded partly with U.S. government money, A123's investment banker said on Saturday, Reuters reported. Timothy Pohl of Lazard Freres said Wanxiang Group Corp's bid of about $260 million topped a joint bid from Johnson Controls Inc of Milwaukee and Japan's NEC Corp for the maker of lithium-ion batteries. Siemens AG of Germany had also qualified to bid, according to two people familiar with the auction, who asked not to be identified.
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A U.S. judge ordered that 10 units of Mexican glassmaker Vitro SAB de CV be put into U.S. bankruptcy and he found that several of them had taken secret steps to prevent creditors from collecting money owed to them, Reuters reported. Several U.S. hedge funds led by Aurelius Capital Management and Elliott International hold defaulted notes issued by the subsidiaries and sought to put the units into bankruptcy.
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Canadian Pacific Railway will eliminate some 4,500 employee and contractor positions by 2016, the new chief executive of Canada’s second largest railway announced Tuesday, The Washington Post reported on an Associated Press story. Chief executive Hunter Harrison said they have already made progress and expect 1,700 positions to be eliminated by year end. CP’s total workforce is 19,500, which includes employees and contractors. The Calgary, Alberta-based company said the reductions will be achieved through job cuts, attrition and fewer contractors as part of its restructuring plan.
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A US appeals court has rejected a request from defaulted creditors led by Elliott Associates, a US fund, to require Argentina to post security of at least $250m by Monday to demonstrate its willingness to pay any judgment in their favour, the Financial Times reported. The ruling from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals means there will be no change to a schedule it laid down last week for the thorny case, which has pit the government against funds it decries as “vultures” and sparked fears of a new Argentine default.
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Representing the largest settlement ever by an auditor in a Canadian securities class-action case, Ernst & Young Canada agreed to pay $117-million to investors of Sino-Forest Corp., the Chinese timber firm whose shares collapsed in 2011 amid sensational fraud allegations, The Globe and Mail reported. The precedent-setting agreement, which still requires court approval, already marks the largest compensation payment ever in a securities class-action case involving a company listed solely in Canada.
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Belize's government released two new proposals Thursday detailing how it could restructure the country's debt, Dow Jones reported. Belize and its creditors have been negotiating a debt restructuring ever since the Central American country defaulted in September, a month after it failed to make a payment on its $548.3 million debt. Thursday's statement was the first public restructuring proposal since the default. The new restructuring scenario asks creditors to forgive 33% of what they are owed, or allow the country to delay debt payments for 10 years.
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