MF Global's European administrator KPMG has won the backing of the British High Court to return 54 million pounds ($84 million) of client assets next month in an early victory for creditors seeking over 1 billion pounds of assets, Reuters reported. KPMG, made special administrator when the broker collapsed in October last year, said on Wednesday the High Court had approved its distribution plan, meaning the administrator can start returning the assets on Aug. 1.

Sanko Steamship Co., the Japanese operator of 185 ships, asked a court to protect its U.S. assets after the company filed for bankruptcy protection in Japan, Bloomberg reported. Sanko listed assets and debt of more than $500 million in a Chapter 15 petition filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. Companies use Chapter 15 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code to protect their U.S. assets while they reorganize operations under the jurisdiction of a foreign bankruptcy court. Sanko said yesterday that the Tokyo District Court granted the closely held company permission to keep operating.

Micron Technology Inc. agreed to acquire troubled Japanese rival Elpida Memory Inc. for about $2.5 billion, as the U.S. memory maker bulks up to compete against rivals in South Korea and Taiwan, The Wall Street Journal reported. The deal would make Micron No. 2 in the market for memory chips, second only to Samsung Electronics Co. Micron, based in Boise, Idaho, currently ranks third, behind SK Hynix Inc., another Korean company that until earlier this year was called Hynix Semiconductor Inc.

Mexican glassmaker Vitro SAB is heading to a U.S. appeals court to save its restructuring at home from an assault by U.S. creditors in a case that could transport the U.S. bankruptcy code beyond that nation's borders, Reuters reported. The case pits one of Monterrey, Mexico's powerful and politically connected "Group of 10" businesses against U.S. hedge funds, which Latin American critics have reviled as "vultures" for their battle against Argentina's sovereign debt restructuring. Hanging in the balance is the use of Chapter 15. Foreign companies have used this 7-year-old piece of the U.S.

Struggling to figure out how to sell DVDs and CDs in a download-driven world, Toronto-based movie and music seller Cinram International Inc. has filed for bankruptcy protection while its executives move to sell its operations, Dow Jones DBR Small Cap reported. The company and several affiliates that it controls filed for Chapter 15 protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., to block the consequences that it would face when its agreement with its biggest lenders expires on June 30.

A U.S. federal judge refused Wednesday to enforce Mexican glass maker Vitro SAB's controversial debt restructuring in a closely watched bankruptcy case that threatened to sever the cross-border business cooperation between the two nation's legal systems, The Wall Street Journal reported. Judge Harlin D. "Cooter" Hale of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Dallas sided with bondholders in rejecting Vitro's bid, in what has been called one of the most important cases decided under Chapter 15, the section of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code governing international insolvencies.

Helicopter equipment and repair company Northstar Aerospace Inc. is filing for creditor protection in both Canada and the United States while it arranges the sale of its business for more than US$70 million, the Winnipeg Free Press reported. The troubled Chicago-area concern said Thursday that its U.S. subsidiaries, Northstar Aerospace (USA) Inc., Northstar Aerospace (Chicago) Inc., Derlan USA Inc. and D-Velco Manufacturing of Arizona Inc. have filed Chapter 11 petitions in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. Meanwhile, Northstar Aerospace (Canada) Inc.

Parts of bankrupt Dutch aluminium producer ZALCO will be bought by a Dutch and a U.S. company, which will continue casting and anode production but smelting operations will cease, the Dutch buyer and an administrator said on Monday, Reuters reported. ZALCO, which had a production capacity of 275,000 tonnes per year of aluminium, filed for bankruptcy in mid-December. Its plant at the port of Vlissingen in the southwest of the Netherlands, which employed 600 people, was shut a few days later due to a lack of funds to pay energy suppliers.

Vitro SAB’s bid to enforce its Mexican bankruptcy plan in the U.S. is set to be decided by a judge next week after the glassmaker clashed with bondholders in court over the plan, Bloomberg reported. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Harlin DeWayne Hale in Dallas said in court today that he plans to rule on Vitro’s enforcement motion next week, probably by June 13. Vitro, which has won approval for the bankruptcy plan in Mexico, is seeking an order from Hale enforcing the restructuring and stopping litigation by bondholders who have been fighting the plan in the U.S.

Investors holding notes with a nominal value of USD1.75bn against the UK subsidiary of Petroplus look increasingly unlikely to recover more than a small part of their principal after the administrator of the UK oil refinery business said it had not been able to sell the site after four months of trying, International Financing Review reported. "We have worked tirelessly to explore all feasible options for the refinery. We have had contact with over 100 possible investors and purchasers.