Citing what he said was “major progress” in the Freedom Industries bankruptcy, a federal judge on Friday called off a hearing he had scheduled to force Freedom management to explain why key aspects of the case were stalled, the Charleston (W.V.) Gazette reported on Saturday. Bankruptcy Judge Ronald Pearson had scheduled a “show cause” hearing for Freedom for next week, saying that he wanted the company’s lawyers and its chief restructuring officer, Mark Welch, to explain why the case should continue down its current path, rather than being transferred to a more traditional liquidation through chapter 7. In a two-page order, Judge Pearson noted that the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection had accepted Freedom into the state’s more flexible “voluntary” toxic-cleanup program and that DEP lawyers had reported in a motion filed on Thursday that the company and the agency had reached an agreement on a cleanup timeline. “This fact is indicative of major progress toward bringing this case towards conclusion,” the judge wrote. Judge Pearson said that the development also indicates that Freedom officials “may not be in a position to fully outline the steps and costs in an environmental remediation plan” by the scheduled hearing date of April 8.
