Modern Continental Construction Co., the largest contractor in Boston’s $15 billion “Big Dig” road and tunnel construction project, filed for bankruptcy protection yesterday, one business day after it was charged with liability in the project’s 2006 collapse, Reuters reported. Modern Continental said that it faced debts of $500 million to $1 billion with an estimated 200 to 999 creditors. Its assets totaled $100 million to $500 million. The U.S. Attorney’s office on Friday charged Modern Continental in federal court with knowingly using the wrong epoxy to suspend concrete anchors that failed in the 2006 tunnel ceiling collapse that a crushed a car and killed a woman passenge. If convicted, the Cambridge, Mass.-based company faces criminal fines of up to $500,000 for each of 49 counts, or a total of $24.5 million.

Financial services firm Fremont General Corp. said Wednesday night that  it filed for bankruptcy protection as part of its plan to sell its retail banking assets to CapitalSource Inc., the Associated Press reported yesterday. The bankruptcy filing was necessary to allow CapitalSource, a commercial lender, to complete the purchase of Fremont General’s retail banking operations. The filing will have no effect on operations at the bank or its branches. Fremont General said that both the California Department of Financial Institutions and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. approved CapitalSource’s acquisition of the retail banking operations. Fremont General previously was one of the largest originators of subprime mortgages.

General Motors Corp. CFO Ray Young said that the company is open to raising additional financing to weather the auto industry’s current downturn, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Young said that the Detroit-based auto maker remains confident in its liquidity for 2008, but that GM’s North American operations are being pressured by strikes, supplier troubles, a slow U.S. market and high gasoline prices. The company believes its nearly $24 billion in available liquidity it now has is enough to run the business, fund capital projects and cover continuing worker-attrition programs, he said.

Bankrupt auto parts maker Dura Automotive continues to edge closer to emerging from bankruptcy, most recently filing an amended chapter 11 plan that lowers the value of the company from $600 million to $495 million, Bankruptcy Law360 reported on Friday. The biggest change made by the new plan is the satisfaction of the second-lien facility claims in equity rather than in cash. In addition, the new plan also stipulates that Dura will pay all debtor-in-possession facility claims in full and in cash. The bulk of the plan, however, remains the same, with the notable exception of the total enterprise value.

The Federal Reserve and the Federal Trade Commission proposed new rules yesterday that would require lenders to tell consumers when they are being offered less favorable terms based on poorer credit scores, Reuters reported. The rules would require a “risk-based pricing” notice to consumers when they receive more expensive credit terms than those offered to individuals with better credit histories. Credit card issuers would be required to provide risk-based pricing notices to any customers who receive a higher annual percentage rate than the lowest rate that the firm is granting its best-qualified customers, according to the proposal. The rules contain some exceptions, including an option for lenders, in lieu of providing risk-based pricing notices, to provide credit scores to all of their customers along with explanatory information.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said U.S. financial markets are emerging from the credit crunch and that “the worst is likely to be behind us,” marking possibly the most optimistic comments yet from the Bush administration on the financial crisis, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Paulson’s comments reflect Treasury’s view that the administration and the Fed have already taken steps necessary to quell the situation. Bolstering that notion, the White House Tuesday threatened to veto legislation that has become the cornerstone of the Democrats’ response: a rescue plan that would provide government insurance for some $300 billion in troubled mortgages. Paulson was careful to predict that there would be further “bumps along the road,” and that it will take “some months longer” for the market distress to fully dissipate.

As fraud against seniors rose nearly 40 percent last year, according to the North American Securities Administrators Assn., Congress recently introduced legislation that aims to curtail bogus credentials used to snare elderly clients, the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday. The Senior Investor Protection bill would provide funding for states to monitor the credentials of people claiming to be senior or retirement specialists and provide funds to investigate and prosecute advisors who use fraudulent or misleading professional designations to get clients. The bill looks to bar advisors from using credentials that have not been verified by an accredited institution, such as a college or university, or by a nationally recognized accrediting institution.

Bankruptcy Judge Judith K. Fitzgerald has given W.R. Grace & Co. approval to sell off 10 polluted industrial sites in a deal that the company has estimated will help it eliminate more than $12.5 million in environmental liabilities, Bankruptcy Law360 reported yesterday. Under the agreement, Environmental Liability Transfer Inc., an environmental acquisition development company, will be required to deposit $11 million into an environmental trust responsible for distributing funds to reimburse expenditures or cleanup costs for the properties. The amount will include a $2.5 million upfront payment, plus a percentage of the subsequent sale proceeds. Grace will receive $4.4 million from the sale of all but the Charleston, S.C., property, which is treated differently under the agreement. Judge Fitzgerald wrote that the sale agreement did not relieve Grace of its duties to comply with a cleanup settlement agreement the company reached in December with the U.S. government, or with any other settlement or judgment in the various states where the contaminated properties are located.

Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines agreed late Monday to merge, in a $3.1 billion deal that would create the world’s biggest airline and could prompt other airlines to pursue mergers of their own, the New York Times reported today. Another leading merger candidate is a combination of United Airlines and Continental Airlines, which have explored the idea. The airlines now may try to get the deal wrapped up within the next 30 days. The Delta-Northwest agreement came despite failed efforts to get pilots at both airlines to agree on how to combine their own ranks, an issue that could lead to labor unrest and disruptions to flight operations in the coming years. Northwest pilots immediately said that they would oppose the deal.

W.R. Grace & Co., the chemical maker forced into bankruptcy seven years ago by more than 135,000 asbestos injury claims, agreed to settle the remainder of those cases by paying as much as $1.8 billion, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The accord, disclosed yesterday in a regulatory filing, would eliminate the last major hurdle to Grace’s reorganization if it’s approved by a bankruptcy judge in Pittsburgh. Under the deal, Grace will no longer have liability for its asbestos products and all future lawsuits would be settled through a trust fund. Under the settlement, the company will pay as much as $1.8 billion into the trust for victims of its asbestos-related products, including insulation. The fund will first collect $250 million, then an additional $1.55 billion from 2019 through 2034, guaranteed by 50.1 percent of Grace common stock.