PG&E Corp. said that it survived attempts to rally wildfire victims against a $13.5 billion settlement offer, positioning the bankrupt utility favorably to exit chapter 11 on its preferred terms, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Opponents of PG&E’s bankruptcy exit strategy had spent weeks laying out their concerns, with a particular focus on personal-injury lawyer Mikal Watts, whose firm counts 16,000 fire victims as clients and who was at the bargaining table when PG&E negotiated its proposed settlement. Other wildfire victims accused Watts of harboring a conflict of interest after he received a $100 million loan in which PG&E investors Centerbridge Partners LP and Apollo Global Management Inc. held stakes. The judge presiding over PG&E’s bankruptcy said that he wouldn’t disqualify the votes of Watts’s clients, rebuffing a challenge that could have held up PG&E’s progress in getting out of bankruptcy. PG&E said yesterday that the preliminary voting results “indicate overwhelming acceptance” of the settlement proposal by wildfire victims, with the final, certified results expected later this week. The company is scheduled to return to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in San Francisco beginning May 27 to seek confirmation of a chapter 11 plan, which clears up an estimated $30 billion worth of liabilities from past wildfires linked to the company’s equipment.
