Monthly Archives: December 2011

At the end of 2011 an Associated Press poll found 62 percent of Americans are optimistic about what 2012 will bring for the nation and 78 percent are hopeful about their family situation, while nearly 70 percent say that 2011 was a year to forget. Food and gas prices surged in 2011, but there are […]

One of the downbeat Massachusetts bankruptcy stories of 2011 had a bitter conclusion on Dec. 29th, when the last of the Filene’s Basement stores closed for good. The Boston retail legend, which filed for bankruptcy for the third time in October, was shuttered after selling off its remaining inventory, plus the store fixtures themselves. The […]

One of the biggest Massachusetts bankruptcy stories of 2011 took another twist in late December, when the scheduled auction of the restaurant chain was cancelled — for lack of bidders. The only bid was a $75M bid by the firm’s current owner, the equity firm Sun Capital Partners. The cancellation of the auction makes it […]

Elevated prices for gasoline and home heating oil are draining family budgets throughout the Merrimack Valley. If you are looking for the likely cause for Massachusetts and New Hampshire consumers to file bankruptcy cases in 2012, you may have to look no further. Even more than the rise in foreclosures, the drop in home values, […]

A federal agency is moving in bankruptcy court against Sun Partners, the owner of the bankrupt Friendly’s restaurant chain, charging them with fraudulently moving assets so that the ice cream stores could avoid paying retirement benefits. Friendly’s lawyers claim “There is nothing nefarious about selling a business in a bankruptcy auction without compelling a buyer […]

If you’ve got bad things to say about a bankruptcy trustee, don’t count on the First Amendment to bail you out. Crystal L. Cox, a blogger from Eureka, Mont., was sued for defamation by trustee Kevin Padrick when she posted online that he was “a thug and a thief” during the handling of bankruptcy proceedings […]