Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
Only two years after launching its operations, Dr. Phil McGraw-backed Merit Street Media filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the Northern District of Texas. The Chapter 11 filing includes an adversarial complaint against Trinity Broadcasting. (File photo by Andy Kropa/Invision/AP)
In one of the largest corporate bankruptcies filed in 2025, North Carolina-based chipmaker Wolfspeed Inc. filed for Chapter 11 protection in the Southern District of Texas.
At the end of a roughly two-hour hearing, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez approved a $50.5 million settlement with directors and officers of GWG, a $30 million settlement with the law firm Mayer Brown, an $8.5 million settlement with Texas accounting firm Whitley Penn and a $2.3 million settlement with brothers Jon R. and Steven F. Sabes, the original founders of GWG.
The lawsuit, filed Thursday, names as defendants David Jones, Elizabeth Freeman, The Law Office of Liz Freeman, Jackson Walker and Porter Hedges. GWG Holdings bondholders allege those parties were part of a conspiracy to “prey upon distressed entities for their own financial gain.”
Only a week after a subsidiary of Sunnova Energy International filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code in the Southern District of Texas, the residential solar corporate parent itself filed for bankruptcy on Sunday, citing more than 100,000 potential creditors and liabilities or debts exceeding $10.6 billion.
This week, the law firm Holland & Knight and its partner Bill Banowsky asked U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Marvin Isgur to dismiss a bankruptcy trustee’s fraud lawsuit against them for failure to state a claim. Holland & Knight and Banowsky argued the trustee had obscured “the facts upon which it must rely for wrongdoing against defendants in this case.”
Residential solar company Sunnova TEP Developer, a subsidiary of Houston-based Sunnova Energy International, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this week in the Southern District of Texas.
Jackson Walker has agreed to attempt to mediate claims brought by federal officials that the Dallas-based law firm should be forced to return millions of dollars it was paid in legal fees from 33 bankruptcy cases in which Jackson Walker lawyers failed to disclose that one of its former partners had a romantic relationship with the Houston judge who was presiding over those cases. The U.S. Bankruptcy Trustee in the Southern District of Texas and lawyers for Jackson Walker filed a joint notice Friday stating that they “intend to participate in an in-person mediation” between June 16 and July 1. (2020 file photo of David Jones by Brett Coomer/Houston Chronicle via Getty)
The U.S. Supreme Court granted an emergency stay to Highland Capital Management, halting a lower court decision that allowed former CEO James Dondero to sue parties involved in the firm’s bankruptcy. Justice Samuel Alito issued a one-page order that pauses a March ruling by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which had permitted Dondero to pursue litigation against individuals previously deemed protected by a North Texas bankruptcy judge in relation to Highland Capital’s bankruptcy and restructuring.
Houston-based Ascend Performance Material and eight of its affiliated businesses filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Monday citing $1 billion to $10 billion in liabilities, according to its filing in the Southern District of Texas.
Less than 48 hours after lawyers representing some of the thousands of women claiming that Johnson & Johnson talc powder caused their ovarian cancer asked a Houston judge for “a do-over” and to reconsider his ruling dismissing their efforts to reach a settlement agreement through the bankruptcy court, the judge issued his answer Thursday: No can do.
Some plaintiffs’ lawyers representing tens of thousands of women claiming that Johnson & Johnson talc powder caused their ovarian cancer have asked a Houston judge to give them a second chance. Attorneys representing different groups of women asked U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez to reverse his March 31 decision to dismiss the Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition filed by Red River Talc, a subsidiary of J&J, but to allow the parties to either fix the flaws in the previous petition or to send the entire case to mediation. But an opposing group of lawyers who also represent more than 20,000 women, including 465 women in the Dallas area, told The Texas Lawbook Wednesday that this new effort to reopen the bankruptcy is just another attempt by J&J “to force unreasonably low settlements on women already suffering from life-threatening illness and financial hardship.”
© Copyright 2026 The Texas Lawbook
The content on this website is protected under federal Copyright laws. Any use without the consent of The Texas Lawbook is prohibited.
