COURT RULES TOYS R US CAN EXTEND ITS STORE LEASES

Toys R Us on Tuesday won bankruptcy court approval of a plan to pay landlords up to $1.3 million to extend store leases beyond an April 16 deadline. The ruling allows the retailer to take more time to decide which of its stores will stay in business and which will be closed. When Toys R Us filed for bankruptcy on Sept. 19, it faced a 120-day deadline for rejecting store leases. The company argued that because of the timing of the bankruptcy filing, it needed to focus on the holiday season, its most critical sales period, before deciding the fate of its stores. In December, it won a ruling to extend the lease rejection deadline to April 16.