The push by creditors of Barretts Minerals to move the talc supplier’s chapter 11 case out of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston was blocked by presiding judge Marvin Isgur, according to a court filing Thursday. The official unsecured creditors committee in November filed a motion seeking to transfer the case from Texas to Montana, noting that Barretts has its headquarters in that state and conducts its primary business of talc mining there. The committee said that Barretts’s only operations in Texas are a single office suite, a processing and transportation facility in Bay City, and a couple of real-estate properties that contain fast-food restaurants. They argued that the company’s choice of filing in Texas amounts to “blatant forum shopping.” Barretts, the former Pfizer minerals business, filed for bankruptcy in October while facing hundreds of personal injury lawsuits alleging that the talc the company supplied for cosmetics products caused exposure to asbestos. In a response to the committee’s motion, Barretts’s chief restructuring officer, David Gordon, said that of the more than 550 pending talc lawsuits against the business, he isn’t aware of any in Montana. In contrast, he said he is aware of at least six lawsuits against Barretts in Texas. He said that Barretts’s decision to file its chapter 11 case in Houston was the result of “careful consideration of a number of factors, including the location of their assets, the logistics of travel for their executives and professionals, and the costs associated with filing in the Southern District of Texas compared to other jurisdictions.”
