Mass Torts

Sponsored by Business Reorganization Committee Over the past decade, companies burdened with significant asbestos and other tort liability have utilized the so-called “Texas Two-Step” strategy to separate those tort liabilities from core assets and resolve them through the chapter 11 bankruptcy process. The “Texas Two-Step” involves a “divisional merger” permitted under the Texas Business Organizations Code and has garnered renewed national attention when it was used by Johnson & Johnson last month as the means to address tort liability arising from its talc products. Please join us for a webinar where our esteemed panelists will provide an overview of the Texas Two-Step, including key rulings, as well as important features and considerations in large tort bankruptcy cases generally, and discuss their reactions to and predictions for the J&J bankruptcy cases.

This panel will focus on the removal and consolidation of tort claims, including those against nondebtors (e.g., Imerys); the aggressive estimation of tort claims for voting purposes (e.g., PG&E and the one-dollar estimation effort); third-party releases (e.g., the effort we are likely to see in BSA to get releases for local councils); channeling injunctions outside of the asbestos context (being used increasingly, but will the bench eventually push back?); the impact of criminal proceedings on a mass tort debtor’s ability to reorganize (e.g., PG&E and some of the pharma cases); the need for multiple committees (e.g., creditors + victims in BSA; the UCC and TCC in PG&E; and the failed effort to appoint a public entities committee in cases); notice and due process issues (e.g., notice to fire victims in PG&E); proposed trust structures; class actions in chapter 11; and Garlock.