Unsecured Creditors

Merry-Go-Round Enterprises Inc. creditors and stockholders yesterday presented the company with a reorganization plan that could allow the Joppa-based clothier to leave bankruptcy protection by the summer.Merry-Go-Round analysts had predicted the retailer's bankruptcy case would drag on for at least another year. Yesterday's proposal, while still tentative and requiring approval the court, also appeared to be blessed by the company."We were reaching a point in the road where things could have become very contentious," said Wilbur L. Ross Jr., senior managing director of Rothschild Inc., a financial adviser to the company's equity holders, of the negotiations between the two sides.

Marley Neck Industrial Park, which owes more than $20 million to its creditors, won approval Friday for an interim spending plan from a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge in Baltimore.Income will be divided between the park and its chief creditor, Barclays Bank PLC, on a monthly basis, according to a motion filed by the bank and by the owner of the Curtis Bay office-warehouse industrial park.The park filed a bankruptcy petition under Chapter 11, allowing reorganization and payment of debts, on Wednesday.

Unsecured creditors of the failing Leedmark store in Glen Burnie, afraid of being ignored as the store heads toward a January closing, filed suit in federal court to force the company into involuntary bankruptcy.Two Baltimore companies and one in Louisiana, claiming they are owed a total of $268,000, filed the petition Tuesday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Baltimore in an effort to force G. B. Glenmark Ltd. Co. into a liquidation under Chapter 7 of the bankruptcy code.If the court grants the creditors' petition, it will appoint a trustee to oversee the Leedmark store's liquidation and the orderly payment of the proceeds to creditors.

The court battles swirling around the owner of the Baltimore Orioles intensified late yesterday when seven banks filed in New York to place Eli S. Jacobs into involuntary bankruptcy.The action is not expected to derail negotiations surrounding the sale of the team.Mr. Jacobs has 20 days to respond to the filing, at which time he could contest the action by demonstrating he is paying his debts. But that is regarded as unlikely because creditors have filed numerous lawsuits seeking repayment of overdue loans and personal guarantees.

The court battles swirling around the owner of the Baltimore Orioles intensified late yesterday when seven banks filed in New York to place Eli S. Jacobs into involuntary bankruptcy.The action is not expected to derail negotiations surrounding the sale of the team.Mr. Jacobs has 20 days to respond to the filing, at which time he could contest the action by demonstrating he is paying his debts. But that is regarded as unlikely as creditors have filed numerous lawsuits seeking repayment of overdue loans and personal guarantees.

U.S. accuses Nymex chairmanFederal regulators have accused the chairman of the New York Mercantile Exchange and two others of commodity law violations. The New York Mercantile Exchange, or Nymex, is the world's biggest market for oil and gasoline futures.In an administrative complaint yesterday, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission accused Z. Lou Guttman; his former partner, Harold Magid, and another man, Gary Glass, of Merrick, N.Y., of noncompetitive, prearranged trading in options on sugar futures.

Continental Airlines announced yesterday that it had accepted a bid from Air Canada as part of a plan to merge the two struggling North American carriers and then look for further alliances to create a competitive global carrier.The bid was accepted by Continental as part of an auction intended to enable the carrier to emerge from bankruptcy. It was made by Air Canada in combination with an investor group led by David Bonderman, a Texas financier.The bid calls for Continental, the fifth-largest U.S. carrier, to get an injection of $450 million in cash once the federal bankruptcy court accepts its plan to reorganize.

After months of trying to revive what was once the world's largest pipe organ maker, the management of M.P. Moller Inc. has decided to liquidate the 117-year-old Hagerstown company."

Recession woes hurt anti-bias enforcementThe recession's ripples are causing turbulence in anti-discrimination enforcement.Attorneys for the Maryland Human Relations Commission say an unprecedented number of their cases now involve businesses under bankruptcy court protection.That means employees who have been treated unfairly because of their gender, race or physical handicap must wait longer for justice and collect less in reparations, says HRC attorney Lee Hoshall.Marylanders who've been fired for illegal reasons -- such as racial discrimination -- can collect back pay.But when a company files for bankruptcy, claims by discrimination victims are placed among those of other other unsecured creditors -- most of whom collect only a tiny percentage of what they are owed, Mr. Hoshall says.