Bankruptcy judges spurned requests for extra pay at PG&E Corp. and Insys Therapeutics Inc. in recent weeks—a rare restriction that reflects outrage over the damage from wildfires linked to the California utility’s equipment and the drugmaker’s role in the opioid crisis, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Dennis Montali last week in San Francisco turned down a proposal that would have added as much as $16 million to this year’s pay for a dozen top PG&E executives. The embattled California utility sought chapter 11 protection from claims for fire damages that could top $30 billion. A week earlier in Delaware, Judge Kevin Gross spurned a request from Insys to hand out severance pay after the drugmaker’s board of directors refused to certify that those on the receiving end hadn’t participated in the company’s criminal behavior. “In both of these decisions, bankruptcy judges are policing the edges of what debtors are allowed to do and promoting confidence in the bankruptcy system,” said Jared Ellias, professor at the University of California Hastings College of Law in San Francisco.
