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Unsealed emails reveal the role baby powder-maker Johnson & Johnson played in a report that an industry group submitted to U.S. regulators deciding whether to keep warnings off talc-based products linked to cancer, Bloomberg News reported. The emails -- unsealed in the state of Mississippi’s lawsuit against J&J over its refusal to add a safety warning -- show that J&J and its talc supplier chose the scientists hired by their trade association, the Personal Care Products Council, to write the 2009 report assessing talc-based powders’ health risks. They also show that the researchers changed the final version of their report at the companies’ behest. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said that it relied in part on the report in its decision to forgo a warning for the product. The emails among executives of J&J and Rio Tinto Minerals, its supplier at the time, provide a behind-the-scenes glimpse of dealings between companies and their industry group that successfully fended off a cancer warning on talc-based powders for nearly 40 years. Now, almost 39,000 users and their families are suing J&J, most claiming their ovarian cancers and those of loved ones were linked to asbestos, the potent carcinogen in the products, which were pulled from U.S. and Canadian shelves in May 2020.

The senior-living provider poised to acquire Hillside Village, acash-strapped retirement community, plans to continue operations there without any major changes, a company spokesman said yesterday, according to the Keene (N.H.) Sentinel. That sale is set to be approved Nov. 19 after the nonprofit Prospect-Woodward Home, which opened Hillside Village two years ago, received no other bids for the facility before a court-imposed deadline late last month, according to Covenant Living Communities & Services spokesman Randy Eilts. The sale hearing, part of Hillside Village's ongoing chapter 11 case, had initially been scheduled for yesterday but was recently postponed. Based in Skokie, Ill., Covenant Living will purchase the Keene facility in a $33 million deal initially announced in August. The company, which operates 18 senior-living facilities nationwide, will honor all existing contracts with Hillside Village residents and staff, Eilts said Monday.

Mallinckrodt Plc filed for bankruptcy last year to resolve thousands of lawsuits accusing it of fueling the opioid epidemic, but as it aims to bring the process to a close, it must first address a completely different kind of claim, Reuters reported. The pharmaceutical company recently kicked off a multi-day hearing seeking approval of its proposed reorganization plan and underlying opioid litigation settlement, which creditors and government entities have largely signed off on. But now, in what one Mallinckrodt attorney called an “unconventional” approach to a chapter 11 plan confirmation process, the company will begin another hearing on Monday over two insurers’ claims that they have had to reimburse their customers at highly inflated prices for Mallinckrodt’s Acthar gel. The product, one of the company's main moneymakers, is used for treatment of infantile spasms and multiple sclerosis. The insurers, Humana Inc. and Attestor, allege that not only did Mallinckrodt engage in anti-competitive practices by inflating Acthar's prices before the bankruptcy in violation of antitrust laws, but that it has continued charging those high rates during the case. The insurers argue that since they have had to continue paying amounts they believe are illegal, they should be entitled to senior priority status in Mallinckrodt’s creditor payment structure.

Johnson & Johnson is seeking to revive its strategy for resolving tens of thousands of lawsuits alleging its baby powder caused ovarian cancer and other health problems in women, Bloomberg News reported. A federal judge opened a two-day trial in Charlotte, N.C., on Thursday to decide whether to temporarily halt 38,000 lawsuits aimed at J&J and about 250 retailers and insurance companies. Stopping the suits is a key part of J&J’s strategy to pay at least $2 billion to end all current and future claims related to baby powder and other talc-based products. To do so, J&J executed a legal strategy known as the Texas Two Step, creating a unit in Texas to hold all of the lawsuits, then transferring that unit to North Carolina and placing it in bankruptcy. The move angered lawyers for alleged baby powder victims, who say J&J is trying to block cancer victims from having their day in court. The lawsuits against J&J’s bankrupt unit, LTL Management, have already been halted as part of standard chapter 11 bankruptcy rules. It also caught the attention of Congress. The House Judiciary Committee voted on Wednesday to advance a bill banning the strategy.

Washington Prime Group, the Columbus, Ohio-based owner of Polaris Fashion Place and dozens of other shopping centers, has emerged from bankruptcy with new leadership, the Columbus Dispatch reported. Lou Conforti has stepped down as the company's chief executive officer after five years in the position. Mark Yale, the company's chief financial officer and executive vice president, and Josh Lindimore, the company's head of leasing and also an executive vice president, will serve as interim co-CEOs, according to a statement issued by SVPGlobal, Washington Prime's new majority owner. “SVPGlobal recognizes the value of our brand, the potential of our assets, and, as importantly, our employees," Conforti said in the statement. Washington Prime filed for bankruptcy protection in June, after struggling for more than a year with a pandemic that crushed mall revenue and traffic. In its bankruptcy filing in Texas, Washington Prime listed assets of $4.03 billion and debts of $3.47 billion. Washington Prime followed other shopping center owners into chapter 11 during the pandemic, including CBL Properties and PREIT, which together own 130 shopping centers.

A company that owns four units in the Epic West Condominium in downtown Miami filed chapter 11 reorganization, the South Florida Business Journal reported. Miami-based Sky Media Pay, formerly known as Sky Media, submitted its chapter 11 petition in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Miami on Oct. 29. It was signed by Paola Angulo as president of the company. The petition listed $2.52 million in assets, mostly the condos, compared to $4.5 million in liabilities. The bankruptcy filing put a halt to three pending foreclosure lawsuits in Miami-Dade County against Sky Media Pay over three of the condos. One of those cases had a foreclosure auction set for Nov. 1, only a few days before the chapter 11 was filed. The case management summary describes Sky Media Pay as being in the business of advertising sales on television and owning condos. It said it filed chapter 11 because of the foreclosure lawsuits. Its revenue for 2021 year-to-date was $60,000, following revenue of $163,971 in 2020 and $431,463 in 2019.

The House Judiciary yesterday favorably reported (23-17) H.R. 4777, the "Nondebtor Release Prohibition Act of 2021," introduced by House Judiciary Chair Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), out of committee. The legislation now goes to the full House of Representatives, where the timeline for consideration by the full chamber is unclear. Nadler, in a press release, said that the legislation would limit tactics known as nondebtor stays and injunctions, which allow a nondebtor to avail itself of the "benefits of the bankruptcy process without assuming the obligations and procedural safeguards associated with bankruptcy." Under the bill, nonconsensual preliminary stays and injunctions could only last up to 90 days. "Finally, the legislation limits the use of so-called 'divisional mergers' — which allow a corporation to shield its assets from its victims and other creditors." Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee objected the proposal, according to WSJ Pro Bankruptcy, saying during the mark-up hearing yesterday that the bill might impair companies’ ability to restructure significant liabilities in chapter 11 or restrict judges’ flexibility in ultimately deciding if a troubled company can be revived and jobs preserved. The Senate Judiciary has not considered the Senate companion bill (S. 2497 introduced by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)), and the proposal still faces challenges given the slim majorities in the House and Senate.

Click here to read the full text of the bill. 

Click here to read Nadler's press release. 

The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York has approved Colombian airliner Avianca's reorganization plan, Avianca said on Tuesday, which will allow the company to complete its chapter 11 bankruptcy process before the end of the year, Reuters reported. Avianca, along with rival Chile's LATAM Airlines, were the two largest carriers in the region before the coronavirus pandemic, but both were sent into bankruptcy restructuring when the virus upended air travel, amid especially strict restrictions in Latin America. Avianca had already posted several years of losses before the pandemic began, and went through a boardroom coup in 2019 led by United Airlines. "The airline expects to successfully complete that process and emerge from chapter 11 before the end of the year as a financially stronger and more efficient airline," the company said in a statement. Avianca will have significantly less debt and more than $1 billion in liquidity when it finishes the bankruptcy process, the statement said.

The Boy Scouts of America’s push to settle sex-abuse claims from 82,200 men has touched off lobbying campaigns by plaintiffs’ lawyers who disagree on whether victims should back a compensation plan that could be the organization’s ticket out of bankruptcy, the Wall Street Journal reported. Abuse victims across the country are debating whether the $1.9 billion settlement offer is fair compensation for lives affected by childhood trauma, as lawyers on different sides of the issue have given conflicting information on what they can expect to receive. One group of lawyers told victims they could receive as much as $2.7 million for the worst abuses, while another estimated that the highest payout would be no more than $58,000. Mario Fernandez, who said he was abused more than 100 times by three different Boy Scout leaders when he was between 8 and 16 years old at a camp in New Jersey, is following his lawyers’ advice and plans to vote against the Scouts’ offer. The law firm representing Fernandez, Pfau Cochran Vertetis Amala, set up a calculator on its website that shows the maximum that victims of the worst abuses — including repeated rapes — can expect to get is about $58,000. The calculator factors in the type of abuse suffered, with choices ranging from “non-touching” to “penetration,” and the state where the incidents occurred. The $2.7 million figure assumes that plaintiffs will get paid the full value of their claims, when in reality there is likely to only be enough money from settlements to date to pay at most 10% of the full value, Jason Amala of PCVA said.

The chapter 7 trustee overseeing the dissolution of New York real estate law firm Kossoff PLLC asked a bankruptcy judge Tuesday to hold its founder in civil contempt and order him incarcerated if he continues defying court orders to cooperate, Reuters reported. The trustee, Al Togut, also asked the judge in a separate motion Tuesday to compel the Manhattan district attorney's office to turn over certain grand jury materials relating to its investigation of firm founder Mitchell Kossoff. The filings underline Togut's mounting frustrations managing the estate of the Kossoff firm, which was forced into bankruptcy in May after creditors claimed it misappropriated more than $8 million from its escrow accounts. Kossoff's refusal to comply with multiple court orders to produce records has "dramatically increased the administrative expense of this estate, which prejudices the interests of the victims of Kossoff’s fraudulent activity," Togut wrote to U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David Jones.