Grounded airline Mexicana de Aviacion, whose emergence from bankruptcy protection was dealt a setback last week, says it's in talks with potential new investors and hopes to return to the skies by the Easter holiday week, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. But fuel prices, which have risen sharply as political tensions in the Middle East and North Africa threaten oil production, add to the uncertainty surrounding the airline's chances at making a comeback.

U.S. private-equity fund TPG Capital and Japanese consumer lender J-Trust are the likely contenders to take over failed consumer lender Takefuji, in a decision to be announced as early as the end of this month, according to sources familiar with the situation, The Wall Street Journal reported. TPG Capital, Cerberus Capital Management, J Trust, Tokyo Star Bank and Korea's A&P Financial are the five finalists for the final round of bidding, the people said.

A C$750 million (US$771 million) lawsuit by a group of former General Motors of Canada Ltd. dealers against the car maker has been granted class-action status by an Ontario court, according to the law firm representing the plaintiffs, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. As reported, the group includes more than 200 former car dealers who alleged that GM Canada, a unit of General Motors Co., breached provincial franchise laws when it eliminated their dealerships in the wake of the 2009 auto bailout.

A Canadian judge has ruled that more than 200 former General Motors dealers who businesses were eliminated in a 2009 restructuring can sue the company as a group, the Associated Press reported. Ontario Superior Court Justice G.R. Strathy on Tuesday granted class action status to the lawsuit filed by more than 200 GM dealers whose franchises were eliminated during GM's financial crisis in 2009, according to a statement from two Toronto law firms representing the dealers.

The planned return to the air of carrier Mexicana de Aviacion suffered another setback Tuesday when the private-equity group that had secured agreements for a restructuring failed to come up with the capital to buy the shares from the current owners, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. PC Capital said in a press release late Tuesday that the transfer of funds to buy Mexicana's holding company Nuevo Grupo Aeronautico, or NGA, wasn't made by the deadline set by current owner Tenedora K.

Pacific Investment Management Co. sees the potential for better returns from selling insurance against sovereign defaults than owning government bonds, according to London-based managing director Andrew Balls, Bloomberg reported. “Rather than taking exposure to interest-rate risk, it may be attractive to sell protection against the default of a country,” Balls told reporters at a media briefing in London today. “I would see the probability of default from the U.S. or U.K.

General Motors Corp. is pushing to speed up a restructuring at its European Opel operation, long an unprofitable quagmire for the auto maker and the missing link in its budding turnaround, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. GM Chairman and Chief Executive Dan Akerson, impatient with the losses, is turning his attention to the Opel problem now that the company has returned to the public markets and is producing a solid profit in North America, people familiar with the matter said.

Anglo Irish Bank has said for the first time that it is likely to object formally to David Drumm’s debt to the bank being written off by a Boston court, the Irish Times reported. The disclosure is made in the bank’s latest filing to the US court in the bankruptcy proceedings being taken by its former chief executive. To succeed in preventing Mr Drumm’s debt to Anglo being written off, it will have to demonstrate to the court that he has acted in bad faith.

The Justice Department's bankruptcy trustee is protesting Bahrain's Awal Bank BSC's request to withhold from public view amounts owed to creditors and other financial details typically exposed in Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. The objection filed Wednesday puts the bankruptcy trustee at odds with the foreign administrator that Bahraini authorities have appointed to manage Awal's insolvency proceedings around the globe. That administrator has said that withholding specific creditor details is in line with procedures followed in Bahrain.

Boxes of bulk chocolate, molds to shape chocolates, sculptures and computers worth almost $90,000 were removed from Chocolaterie Bernard Callebaut when the company was placed in receivership last year, which landed its namesake back in court Wednesday, The Calgary Herald reported. In the latest twist in the Callebaut saga, receiver Deloitte & Touche is asking that Bernard Callebaut and his wife Francesca be found in contempt of its receivership order.