Seattle-based WaMu, which filed for Chapter 11 reorganization along with its Washington Mutual Investment Corp. affiliate in September, contends in the complaint that the funds are part of its bankruptcy estate.

The complaint was filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware on Monday, one month after New York-based JPMorgan filed its own adversary action asserting that the funds were included in its $1.9 billion purchase of substantially all of WaMu's banking assets from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

A Manhattan judge cleared the way for the newly filed Chapter 7 petition last week by granting a request from the same investors to lift a temporary order barring bankruptcy for Madoff. They had argued that a bankruptcy case was needed to protect their rights amid an ongoing scramble to seize his assets.

Madoff, 70, pleaded guilty last month to federal charges his secretive investment advisory service actually was a multibillion Ponzi scheme in which he paid longtime clients with money from new ones. He is jailed, awaiting a June sentencing for charges that carry a sentence of up to 150 years in prison.

Federal authorities already have begun forcing Madoff to forfeit property they allege was paid for by his fraud. In addition, a court-appointed trustee is liquidating assets from his securities firm to help play claims from thousands of burned investors.

The investors who sought bankruptcy believe it was the best way to make sure "all the property available would go to the victims," their lawyer, Jonathan Landers, said Monday.

They include a general partnership in Florida that claims it lost $30.2 million and another Madoff client who says he lost about $29 million in personal and charitable trust accounts. The claims are based on amounts listed in the last statements they received from Madoff — documents investigators say were fictitious.

Vick is scheduled to make his first personal appearance in a Virginia bankruptcy court since filing his Chapter 11 case from prison.

Vick must testify at the hearing, which begins Thursday in Newport News. The former Atlanta Falcons quarterback is serving a 23-month sentence for bankrolling a dogfighting ring. He's due to be released in July.

His plan would allow him to keep the first $750,000 of his salary. Creditors would get part of any additional earnings.

Earlier this week Vick agreed to pay the Falcons at least $6.5 million, moving closer to cutting ties with a team that doesn't want him.

Lawyers for the newspaper, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January, told Judge Robert Drain on Wednesday that it needs $3.5 million in concessions from its pressmen union as part of $20 million in total cuts from 10 unions.

"We're at a critical stage," Chief Financial Officer David Montgomery said. "We need to save every dollar we can possibly save to get us through this period and get us to the other side of the recession."

Montgomery said the nation's 15th-largest newspaper had failed to reach an agreement with the pressmen, forcing it to ask the court for the power to cancel the contract.

Drain did not indicate when he would rule. The second of three days of hearings was scheduled for Thursday afternoon in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York.

The Star Tribune has sought protection from creditors while it tries to reorganize its businesses and finances. Amid an industrywide decline in advertising revenue, the newspaper is burdened by heavy debt it took on when Avista Capital Partners LP bought it from McClatchy Co. in March 2007.

The cancellation of the contract would affect 116 union employees. The company has not said whether it would take similar action against unions representing another 600 workers. Besides the pressmen, the newspaper's four largest unions represent newsroom employees, drivers and mailroom workers.

As of December, the newspaper had $667 million in debt, $492 million in assets and $27 million in cash. So far, it has skipped $20 million in interest payments to lenders. From early 2007 to the end of last year, the newspaper has cut $50 million in costs.

Spansion Inc., the U.S. maker of memory chips for mobile phones, filed for bankruptcy protection to restructure its debt after failing to make an interest payment on $266 million of bonds.


The company listed debt of $2.4 billion and assets of $3.8 billion as of the end of the third quarter of 2008 in Chapter 11 documents filed yesterday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Delaware.

Spansion announced plans to cut 35 percent of its workforce on Feb. 23, after missing a second payment deadline on the notes. The Sunnyvale, California-based company hasn’t made a profit since it was spun off by Advanced Micro Devices Inc. in 2005, and has been hurt by slackening demand for semiconductors.

Spansion continues to explore strategic opportunities while attempting to restructure debt and focusing on operations with profit-generating potential, the company said yesterday.

“Chapter 11 provides the most effective means for Spansion to preserve its business,” Chief Executive Officer John Kispert said in a statement. Four subsidiaries also sought protection.

The shares slumped 60 percent to 2 cents in Nasdaq Stock Market trading at 9:56 a.m. New York time. They have fallen 99 percent since reaching a 52-week high of $3.70 in May.

The 65 largest unsecured consolidated creditors are owed $951.1 million, court papers show.

In the Chapter 11 filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, Journal Register proposed a restructuring plan in which it would cancel its stock and become a closely held company controlled by its lenders.

The Yardley, Pa.-based newspaper publisher reported $596 million in assets as of Nov. 30 and $692 million in debt, including unpaid interest. Revenue has fallen more than 20 percent since 2006, the company said in the court filing.

In the documents, company Chairman and Chief Executive James W. Hall said the recession had placed an even greater burden on an already distressed industry.

On Thursday, JP Morgan Chase & Co. and 26 of the company's 37 lenders agreed to the reorganization, according to a statement posted Saturday on the Journal Register's corporate Web site.

A phone message left for company spokesman Edward Yoakam at Journal Register's corporate offices was not immediately returned.

The request filed Wednesday with U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York seeks to cut those benefits to 15,000 salaried retirees as soon as April 1. The Troy, Mich.-based company said the moves would save about $70 million annually, or $200 million through 2011.

Cutting the benefits also would allow Delphi to reduce its balance sheet liabilities by $1.1 billion, the company said.

Delphi said in the filing that its plan to emerge from bankruptcy protection had been based on assumptions of industrywide light vehicle production of 14.2 million units in 2009 and up to 16.3 million units in 2011.

The forecast also included expectations that General Motors Corp., the supplier's former parent and still largest customer, would build at least 3.15 million light vehicles in 2009 and up to 3.61 million in 2011.

But the overall industry took a turn for the worse in the fourth-quarter of 2008 and the U.S. based automakers now say that the best the industry will be able to do this year will be about 12 million to 12.5 million units, Delphi said in its filing.

Delphi has been operating under Chapter 11 protection since October 2005. A hearing on the request is set for Feb. 24.