The Department of Justice yesterday filed a Statement of Interest in In re Bestwall LLC in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of North Carolina, according to a DOJ press release. In this bankruptcy case, the debtor Bestwall LLC seeks to establish a trust to resolve its asbestos liabilities pursuant to 11 U.S.C. § 524(g), a provision in the Bankruptcy Code that provides the framework for responding to the unique issues associated with asbestos liability. As part of the bankruptcy, the court will evaluate the submitted asbestos claims and estimate the amount of the debtor’s asbestos liabilities. In order to ensure the accuracy of the estimation, the debtor has asked the court to require asbestos claimants to fill out a questionnaire providing basic information about their claims and to authorize discovery from other asbestos trusts to which claimants have submitted claims. The department’s Statement of Interest supports these proposed procedures on the ground that they will further transparency in the evaluation of the submitted asbestos claims and ensure the reliability of the estimation of the debtor’s asbestos liabilities. “It has become increasingly common for claimants’ counsel to seek duplicative recoveries from multiple sources by misrepresenting the asbestos products to which claimants were exposed,” said Deputy Assistant Attorney General Douglas Smith of the Justice Department's Civil Division. “Such duplicative claiming depletes resources that would otherwise be available to compensate deserving claimants filing claims in the future. Today’s Statement of Interest is one of many actions the department has taken over the last several years to encourage greater transparency in asbestos bankruptcy proceedings and prevent fraud.”
