In 2019, P. Higgins formulated [1] a question about bipartite graphs (see Conjecture 1 below); this question arises in the study of regular finite semigroups. F. V. Petrov formulated [2] another combinatorial conjecture (Conjecture 3); Conjecture 3 implies Conjecture 1 and seems simple itself. However, both conjectures remain unproven in the general case. In the present paper, some special cases are proved, Conjecture 4 is formulated in the same spirit, and some of its special cases are proved. In addition, Conjecture 1 is reduced to a matrix inequality (Conjecture 5); this inequality is, in turn, also proved in a special case.