United States

Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp., and their bidding allies are due in court next week to close on a $4.5 billion win in the auction of Nortel Networks Corp.'s portfolio of technology patents, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. Judges in the U.S. and Canada must sign off on the deal, the largest ever sale of intellectual property, and a transaction that will reverberate through courts around the world as the winners wield their Nortel prizes in infringement cases.

Nortel Networks and its subsidiaries sold 6,000 patents to a consortium consisting of Apple, EMC, Ericsson, Microsoft, Research In Motion and Sony, Datacenter Dynamics reported. The winners emerged after a multi day auction with a cash bid of $4.5bn. In a statement the company said: ‘The sale includes more than 6,000 patents and patent applications spanning wireless, wireless 4G, data networking, optical, voice, internet, service provider, semiconductors and other patents.

Mexican glass maker Vitro SAB said a Texas bankruptcy judge's ruling that lifts an injunction against creditors showed a "mistrust of the Mexican judicial system" and is likely to severely harm the company if bondholders are allowed to continue lawsuits against certain subsidiaries, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. Vitro filed papers Wednesday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Dallas appealing the ruling. The company is demanding that its subsidiaries, which are not part of ongoing reorganization cases in the U.S.

Hong Kong-based Grande Holdings Ltd., which owns such global consumer electronic brands as Nakamichi, Akai and Sansui, is seeking court protection from its U.S. creditors, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. Grande reported assets and debts each in the range of $100 million to $500 million in the Chapter 15 bankruptcy petition it filed Tuesday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, court papers show.

Blockbuster Inc.'s Canadian subsidiary on Thursday got a 14-day extension to keep using the Blockbuster name through the middle of July, as the video-rental company sorts out issues on both sides of the border, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. Without the agreement, Blockbuster Canada would have been forced by new Blockbuster owner Dish Network Corp. to stop using the Blockbuster name on June 30. After about two hours privately meeting with Judge Burton R. Lifland of the U.S.

Judges in the U.S. and Canada have pushed Nortel Networks Corp.'s warring units back into mediation, urging them to reach a deal over how to divide some $4 billion raised in the telecommunications company's global liquidation, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. The prospect that Nortel's creditors around the world could wait a long time to find out how much of the cash they will get is "troublesome," Judge Kevin Gross of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., wrote. The wait is due to a dispute over whether Nortel should divide the cash in court, as Nortel U.S.

Try to talk about Mexican restructuring law for 15 seconds without saying the word Vitro. You can’t! And neither could the four participants in a New York panel discussion Monday on Mexico’s 11-year-old equivalent of a bankruptcy code, called Ley de Co Concurso Mercantiles, the Bankruptcy Beat blog reported. The panelists seem to agree that the prepackaged plan being pushed by Mexico’s largest glassmaker is the biggest challenge yet to the viability of Concurso. Vitro SAB and its bondholders have been fighting for months in both the U.S.

US car giant General Motors appears to be ready to sell its subsiary Opel once again, amid continuing losses at the German firm, SPIEGEL reported. When GM abandoned an effort to sell the firm, the decision caused deep-seated tensions between the American company and the government in Berlin. In 2009, United States car manufacturer General Motors put its German subsidiary Opel up for sale, because GM itself was faced with bankruptcy.

Telecommunications-equipment maker Nortel Networks Corp., in the process of liquidating its assets, has asked that an official retiree committee be named to negotiate over ending or modifying health-care benefits the company attempted to cut off last year, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. In a filing Thursday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., Canada-based Nortel said it had spent $19 million on U.S. retiree and disability benefits since being thwarted by a July 2010 appeals court decision that said companies must talk to retirees before terminating their benefits.

Dish Network Corp. is threatening Blockbuster Canada with the loss of its use of the Blockbuster logo, as part of a strategy to acquire its assets, Blockbuster Canada Co. said, Bloomberg reported. Blockbuster’s U.S. business, acquired by Dish, has asked for bankruptcy court permission to end an agreement with the Canadian unit over trademarks, Grant Thornton Ltd., a receiver for the Canadian assets said in court papers filed in Manhattan court today.