Tribune Co. believes it will still emerge from bankruptcy protection this year even though a court-appointed examiner concluded that talks leading up to a leveraged buyout of the company had bordered on fraud.

In a memo to employees, Tribune CEO Randy Michaels and Chief Operating Officer Gerald Spector said they agreed with only some of the conclusions in Monday's report, while disputing others. They did not go into specifics, saying it would be premature to comment while the full examiner's report remains under court seal.

A hearing on whether to release the nearly 700-page document was scheduled for Thursday in Wilmington, Del.

The 2007 leveraged buyout took the company private and ultimately helped land it in Chapter 11. The deal has drawn scrutiny from bondholders who are trying to recover more of their money.

Real estate mogul Sam Zell led the deal, which piled on what turned out to be an unsustainable amount of debt. The company, which owns the Chicago Tribune, Los Angles Times and other properties, filed for Chapter 11 protection in December 2008.

A federal appeals court has overturned rulings allowing auto parts supplier Visteon Corp. to terminate its retirees' health and life insurance benefits.

In a ruling Tuesday, the appeals court in Philadelphia sided with attorneys representing some 2,100 retirees from two Visteon manufacturing plants in Indiana.

A Delaware bankruptcy judge concluded in March that the retirees did not have vested rights in the benefits, and that Van Buren Township, Mich.-based Visteon could terminate them unilaterally. That decision was upheld by a federal district court judge in Delaware.

But the appeals court agreed with the retirees that Congress, through the bankruptcy code, intended to restrict a debtor's ability to modify or terminate retiree benefits during a Chapter 11 case, regardless of whether it could terminate those benefits outside of bankruptcy.

BP PLC has several options to explore in dealing with the worst environment disaster in U.S. history, but the oil giant may file for bankruptcy if it faces a never-ending flow of claims, lawyers and bankers said Tuesday.

"BP has many options besides bankruptcy and is a long way from exhausting those," said Loretta Cross, a national managing partner at Grant Thornton's corporate-advisory and restructuring-services group, during a conference call organized by the American Bankruptcy Institute.

The Deepwater Horizon platform exploded on April 20, killing 11 people. It sank two days later, triggering a massive oil leak that's still spewing oil and gas. BP shares have plummeted on concern that the company could be overwhelmed by tens of billions of dollars in claims and other liabilities.

Cross, who specializes in energy-company reorganizations, estimated Tuesday that BP needs roughly $30 billion in cash outside of what the company can generate from its balance sheet.

A Delaware bankruptcy court judge on Friday cleared the way for auto parts supplier Visteon Corp. to begin soliciting votes on its proposed reorganization plan, which would leave unsecured bond holders in control of the company.

Overruling objections from certain shareholders and holders of unsecured trade claims, Judge Christopher Sontchi approved documents describing Visteon's proposed reorganization plan and the process for creditors to vote on it.

Creditors will have until July 30 to vote on the plan, and Sontchi scheduled a plan confirmation trial to begin Sept. 28.

The shareholders could receive nothing under Visteon's plan, and the trade creditors would get no more than 50 cents on the dollar for their claims, which total about $48 million. Their attorneys argued that the disclosure statement outlining Visteon's plan did not contain enough information on the company's valuation, and that the plan itself was unconfirmable because of how it treats various creditor groups.

Attorneys for Visteon argued that the objections to the disclosure statement were without merit, or that they should be addressed at what promises to be a contentious plan confirmation trial stretching over two weeks.