Despite one creditor’s lingering reservations, diamond jewelry wholesaler M. Fabrikant & Sons Inc. finally got court approval of its disclosure statement on Wednesday, paving the way for a vote on the chapter 11 plan it jointly filed with creditors. Bankruptcy Law360 reported yesterday. Judge Stuart Bernstein handed down his order after postponing a decision several times in the last week so that plan proponents could make revisions to the statement. Bernstein set a number of filing deadlines and sketched out voting procedures with his following order. The debtors must send out ballots and copies of the statement and plan by today. Votes, administrative claims and objections to the plan must be cast by Dec. 7, responses must be filed by Dec. 13 and a confirmation hearing is set for Dec. 19.
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The San Diego Catholic diocese’s eight-month-old bankruptcy case drew to a close yesterday as Bankruptcy Judge Louise DeCarl Adler dismissed the case and scolded the church for being “disingenuous” in reporting its finances to parishioners as part of a campaign to fund a $198 million settlement with victims of sexual abuse, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported today. “Chapter 11 is not supposed to be a vehicle, a method, to hammer down the claims of those abused,” she said. Judge Adler had planned to grant the diocese’s request to dismiss the bankruptcy without comment, but she said she recieved a packet in the mail from her former parish asking to help pay the settlement that she thought was less than candid about the diocese finances. Judge Adler said that there is ample property the church could sell or mortgage to fund the settlement, citing parking lots, houses and other holdings listed in court documents.