The U.S. and Canadian judges overseeing the long-deadlocked bankruptcy of Nortel Networks Corp. have ruled that a joint cross-border trial will be held later this year to determine how to divvy up the defunct company’s remaining $9-billion, The Globe and Mail reported. Mr. Justice Geoffrey Morawetz of the Ontario Superior Court and Chief Judge Kevin Gross of the U.S.

Bankrupt telecoms equipment giant Nortel Networks once boasted of a global operation, but now its former world-wide units are squaring off over its last remaining asset: $9 billion in cash. Two judges, one in Wilmington, Delaware, and the other in Toronto, will jointly hear arguments on Thursday that will ultimately decide how, and when, to carve up that money, Thomson Reuters News & Insight reported. The outcome will determine how much will be available for tens of thousands of retirees, governments and hedge funds investors. "The issues which remain for decision are imposing," U.S.

Mexico's Vitro said on Monday it had ended a lengthy legal fight with creditors after a Mexican businessman bought a chunk of the glassmaker's debt held by funds that had led the court fight, Thomson Reuters News & Insight reported. Under the deal, Monterrey-based businessman David Martinez' Fintech fund will buy all the debt held by U.S. hedge funds that were fighting Vitro in court over payment, the company said in a statement.

Argentina has greeted an order from a US appeals court for more information on its offer to holdout creditors as a glimmer of hope in its fight not to pay “vulture funds” without a steep writedown on their debt, the Financial Times reported. “We are not trying to convince the vultures to participate, we are trying to convince the judges, and that’s why it’s a good sign that the court has asked Argentina what the 2010 offer means,” Hernán Lorenzino, the economy minister, told the newspaper Página 12.

PT Berlian Laju Tanker Tbk, the Indonesian operator of 72 tankers, won't be permitted to proceed in U.S. bankruptcies while keeping all papers sealed and withheld from the public, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Stuart Bernstein ruled at a hearing, StamfordAdvocate.com reported on a Bloomberg story. Gramercy Distressed Opportunity Fund II along with two sister funds filed an involuntary Chapter 11 petition against the PT Berlian parent in December. The company responded by asking Bernstein to dismiss the involuntary case.

The economic crises in the United States and Europe wiped out decades of progress in expanding the world financial system, depressing the flow of investments and loans across borders and potentially setting the stage for an epoch of entrenched low growth, according to a new study on global finance patterns, The Washington Post reported. The McKinsey Global Institute report combines databases from the International Monetary Fund, global central banks and other sources to try to sum up what has been lost in the aftermath of the 2008 Lehman Bros.

Memory chipmaker Micron said the Tokyo district court issued an order approving its acquisition of Japanese memory chipmaker Elpida after creditors agreed to the plan, Reuters reported. Boise, Idaho-based Micron, which is losing money due to a crumbling PC industry, wants to create larger economies of scale and offered in July to buy Elpida for about $750 million in cash and to pay creditors a total of $1.75 billion in annual installments through 2019. Elpida's creditors voted to approve the deal on Tuesday, Micron said.

The Official Stanford Investors Committee and the court-appointed receiver of Allen Stanford's financial empire have sued Antigua and Barbuda, the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank and 23 former Stanford Financial Group Co executives, accusing them of assisting in the financier's $7 billion (4.5 billion pounds) Ponzi scheme, Reuters reported. The committee is seeking at least $90 million of transfers to Antigua, according to the complaint filed on February 15 in U.S. Federal Court in Dallas. It also is seeking punitive damages.

Bahrain-based Arcapita Bank, the first Gulf company to file for bankruptcy in the United States under Chapter 11 rules, said on Saturday it had submitted a plan to reorganise the company, Reuters reported. The investment firm filed for bankruptcy in New York in March and was given court approval in November to take out a $125 million sharia-compliant loan to provide funding while it restructured its debts. Arcapita's case is being closely watched in the Gulf, where companies have little recourse to orderly ways of dealing with insolvency.

A complex restructuring plan for Punch Taverns, the debt-laden landlord group that owns almost one in 10 British pubs, is likely to face criticism from senior bond holders who doubt the company's claims that it will create a "sustainable capital structure", The Guardian reported.