Bankruptcy Judge Allen Gropper ruled on Thursday that Anadarko Petroleum Corp. must pay billions of dollars in damages to creditors of Tronox Inc. stemming from the chemical maker's improper spinoff by Andarko's Kerr-McGee Corp, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Judge Gropper said that Andarako could be on the hook for damanges of $5.15 billon to $14.2 billion to a trust created to pursue Tronox 's mammoth lawsuit seeking to assign blame for its toxic past. “The Court finds that the defendants acted with intent to 'hinder and delay' the debtors' creditors when they transferred out and then spun off the oil and gas assets, and that the transaction, which left the debtors insolvent and undercapitalized, was not made for reasonably equivalent value," Judge Gropper said in his ruling.
