A New Jersey bankruptcy judge declined to rule Thursday on motions by a creditor group and the U.S. Trustee's Office to transfer or dismiss the Chapter 11 case of global label maker Multi-Color Corp., saying he would endeavor to rule on them soon.

After a full day of witness testimony and argument, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Michael B. Kaplan said he would attempt to "reach a conclusion in the short term." A cross-holder ad hoc group of hedge funds and investment managers and the U.S. Trustee's Office had asked the judge to order Multi-Color's case dismissed or to transfer it to a different bankruptcy court.

The groups argue that Judge Kaplan should reject Multi-Color's attempts to establish venue in New Jersey through its affiliate MCC-Norwood LLC. The cross-holder group said in a filing Tuesday that MCC-Norwood owned assets with "no connection to New Jersey," and the debtor's move to open bank accounts in the state prior to its Chapter 11 filing fails because the accounts were only funded days before Multi-Color's bankruptcy petition.

"The debtors' cynical manipulation of venue represents precisely the conduct that courts have repeatedly condemned," the cross-holder group said.

The U.S. Trustee's Office leveled similar arguments against Multi-Color, saying in its own filing Tuesday that the debtor was seeking an order affirming that venue could be manufactured by "nothing more than a simple deposit of money into a bank account on the eve of bankruptcy."

"If the court so holds, the carefully crafted legislative scheme of 28 U.S.C. § 1408 would be rendered meaningless and would allow virtually any business debtor to file for bankruptcy in any district in the country," the bankruptcy watchdog said.

At the hearing Thursday, Multi-Color counsel Steven N. Serajeddini of Kirkland & Ellis LLP pushed back on those allegations, saying MCC-Norwood's bank accounts contain cash and have only been located in New Jersey. Serajeddini also charged that the cross-holder group's venue challenge was an attempt by the investors to invalidate the company's debtor-in-possession financing.

"A transfer would irreparably set these cases back," Serajeddini said.

After hearing the arguments, Judge Kaplan didn't opine on the motions.

"I'm not making a decision today," he said. "I will absorb the record."

Atlanta-based Multi-Color and affiliates hit Chapter 11 last month with an agreement to trim $3.9 billion of its $5.9 billion in debt. The company makes labels for a broad range of automotive, pharmaceutical, beauty, laundry, food and other consumer products.

Multi-Color's debtor-in-possession financing package won interim approval Feb. 2, but only after the amount of money that lenders can roll up was cut in half due to concerns about the value of collateral securing some first-lien claims.

At the debtor's first-day hearing, the cross-holder ad hoc group argued that the financing would improperly reallocate value from unsecured creditors to MCC's favored lenders and its controlling private equity sponsor, Clayton Dubilier & Rice LLC.

The group also sued Barclays Bank PLC as Multi-Color's collateral agent on Feb. 14, seeking a declaration that the bank holds liens only on some assets and not "substantially all" assets and property as stated previously in the Chapter 11 case.

The debtor is represented by Steven N. Serajeddini, Rachael M. Bentley, Peter A. Candel and Ashley L. Surinak of Kirkland & Ellis LLP and Michael D. Sirota, Warren A. Usatine and Felice R. Yudkin of Cole Schotz PC.

The cross-holder ad hoc group is represented by Paul R. DeFilippo, James N. Lawlor and Joseph F. Pacelli of Wollmuth Maher & Deutsch LLP, and Bruce Bennett, Benjamin Rosenblum, Genna L. Ghaul, Andrew Butler and Benjamin C. Sandberg of Jones Day.

The case is In re: Multi-Color Corp., case number 3:26-bk-10910, in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey.