By Stephanie Gleason 
 

Ahead of a long weekend, companies are looking for approval from bankruptcy judges next week on a variety of motions, including one signoff that would largely conclude an old dispute.

On Monday, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and the remnants of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. will ask for approval of a $1.42 billion settlement that resolves claims that J.P. Morgan illegally siphoned billions of dollars from Lehman before its collapse.

The deal resolves the bulk of Lehman's $8.6 billion lawsuit against J.P. Morgan and the bank's counterclaims against Lehman. It also puts to rest Lehman's challenges over J.P. Morgan's closeout of thousands of derivatives contracts following the investment bank's collapse.

Although the settlement doesn't resolve all the claims between Lehman and J.P. Morgan, it ends a "significant portion" of their disputes, court papers said, and allows the post-bankruptcy Lehman estate to make another $1.5 billion distribution to the investment bank's creditors.

The settlement comes after a federal judge last fall ruled for J.P. Morgan, saying the bank didn't abuse its leverage as Lehman's primary clearing bank to force the investment bank to hand over more collateral in the weeks before its September 2008 collapse.

On Thursday, Magnum Hunter Resources Corp. will ask a bankruptcy judge to allow it to begin polling creditors on the terms of its proposed restructuring plan.

The Texas oil-and-gas company entered bankruptcy in December with the terms of its plan largely in place but requiring approvals from creditors and the bankruptcy court to fully implement the deal.

The company is proposing a debt-for-equity swap that would hand ownership to the lenders and bondholders in exchange for forgiveness of $1 billion in pre-bankruptcy debt and a $200 million bankruptcy loan. General unsecured creditors are slated to share a $20 million cash pool, according to court documents.

The company's chief executive has said that the massive deleveraging of Magnum's balance sheet would put it in a strong position upon its exit from bankruptcy and added that this deal is an "outlier" in an industry that has been ravaged by low and falling oil and gas prices.

On Tuesday, Alpha Natural Resources will ask for bankruptcy-court approval of several of its coal mines.

The company canceled an auction for more than 30 active and closed mines, citing weak interest, but said it has offers on several of the assets.

With coal prices at historic lows, reduced domestic and international demand and increasing regulatory pressures, the industry troubles that have sent a number of large coal-mining companies into chapter 11 protection are also sidelining buyers.

An Alpha lawyer told the bankruptcy judge in court last month that in light of the lack of buyer interest in "many assets," the company would be retaining a "large group of mines" as part of its restructuring and would have to contend with the significant environmental obligations connected to those mines.

-Jacqueline Palank and Patrick Fitzgerald contributed to this article.

Write to Stephanie Gleason at stephanie.gleason@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 05, 2016 12:06 ET (17:06 GMT)