The Texas Lawbook

Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury

Bankruptcy

Kirkland, Norton Rose Fulbright to Advise Clean Energy Business in Billion-dollar Bankruptcy

California-based Global Clean Energy Holdings, a renewable fuels company, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the Southern District of Texas early Wednesday. Citing between $1 billion and $10 billion in liabilities and assets in its original petition, Global Clean Energy and 15 of its affiliated companies hired Kirkland & Ellis as its lead legal advisor and Norton Rose Fulbright Houston partner Jason Boland as its local legal bankruptcy counsel.

Mark Curriden

Bankruptcy Judge Isgur Rips GWG Holdings Trustee’s Lawyers on Lack of Due Process Notice to Investors 

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Marvin Isgur ended a hearing Friday morning in the GWG Holdings case after finding lawyers for the trustee had failed to meet their due process obligations under the constitution to provide bondholders with notice of how a proposed settlement would impact them. “I find there is not due process notice and this is not a close call,” he said, adding the effort of the lawyers to inform bondholders, some of whom put their life savings in the company, that they could expect to get back only about 3 percent of what they invested was “completely deficient” and “an embarrassment.”

Michelle Casady

WDTX Chief Judge Removes Jackson Walker Bankruptcy Fee Cases from SDTX Chief Bankruptcy Judge

Chief U.S. District Judge for the Western District of Texas, Alia Moses, has taken control of the 34 bankruptcy cases where the U.S. Trustee is seeking to clawback millions in fees awarded to Dallas-based Jackson Walker. “This unique case nevertheless requires stiff measures. The need to reestablish public trust and confidence in the court system alone impels withdrawal in this highly unusual case,” she wrote.

Michelle Casady

Hooters Files For Chapter 11 Protection in NDTX

Hooters of America announced Monday night that it had entered a restructuring support agreement to sell its remaining company-owned Hooters locations to a specific group of its current franchisees. In conjunction with this move, Hooters of America and 29 other Hooters-affiliated debtors also announced that they had voluntarily filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the Northern District of Texas. Lawyers from Ropes & Gray and Foley & Lardner are advising.

Nick Peck

Houston Judge Rejects $9B Bankruptcy Effort By J&J

Houston Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez ruled late Monday that multiple flaws require him to dismiss Johnson & Johnson’s third attempt to use the federal bankruptcy courts to rid itself of 90,000 cases filed across the country by women suing pharmaceutical giant for making and selling baby powder that they claim caused their ovarian and other gynecological cancers. In a 57-page opinion, Judge Lopez said his ruling to reject J&J’s efforts to create a separate subsidiary in Texas called Red River Talc for the sole purpose of funding a $9 billion resolution of its talc powder cancer litigation through the bankruptcy process was "not an easy one, [but] it is the right one.”

Mark Curriden

GWG Trustee Sues Holland & Knight for $148M Over Alleged Beneficient Fraud

The bankruptcy trustee appointed to recover funds for creditors in the GWG Holdings bankruptcy case has sued Holland & Knight for nearly $150 million for “knowing participation in a fraudulent looting scheme and associated criminal enterprise” that included Dallas-based financial services firm Beneficient and its founder and CEO Bradley Heppner. In a 156-page complaint filed Friday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston, the court-appointed trustee accuses longtime outside counsel Holland & Knight and one of its Dallas law partners of colluding with Heppner to “fraudulently induce” GWG to invest the $148.4 million to help BEN “stave off collapse” by repaying a senior lender.

Mark Curriden

Jackson Walker, US Trustee Drop Objections to Experts in Bankruptcy Fee Case

At an evidentiary hearing where the parties were supposed to fight to convince Chief U.S. Bankruptcy Judge for the Southern District of Texas, Eduardo V. Rodriguez, to strike the experts offered by the other side, a détente was reached shortly after lunch Thursday. But during the hearing, the U.S. Trustee revealed that the secret romantic relationship between former judge David Jones and former Jackson Walker bankruptcy partner Elizabeth Freeman began in 2010 or 2011 and said the firm learned about it in 2021.

Michelle Casady

Judge Recommends Ending Disciplinary Action Against Jackson Walker

U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal is recommending closing a proceeding that was initiated to determine whether Jackson Walker should face any disciplinary action for its failure to disclose a romantic relationship between its former bankruptcy partner and a sitting bankruptcy judge. The order came about four months after the case was randomly assigned to her court.

Michelle Casady

© 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.