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A judge overseeing the bankruptcy of Remington Outdoor Co., the maker of the weapon used to kill 26 people, mostly children, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, barred lawyers for victims’ families from probing the company’s finances, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Judge Clifton Jessup rejected inquiries from lawyers for the families of nine Sandy Hook victims at a hearing Thursday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Decatur, Ala. Lawyers for the families said that they wanted to see the company’s finances to verify whether Remington took refuge in chapter 11 for proper purposes, as it claims, or to dodge their lawsuit, which seeks to pry open the weapons industry’s marketing practices. Remington denies liability for the Sandy Hook shooting in Newtown, Conn. “Just because we filed for bankruptcy doesn’t give them the right to walk around and snoop around our business,” said Gary Svirsky, lawyer for Remington. Judge Jessup sided with the company and declined requests for information that would show whether Remington is in dire financial shape. The firearms maker returned to bankruptcy in July, a few years after shedding hundreds of millions of dollars in debt during an earlier trip through chapter 11. Remington’s latest bankruptcy filing came after the company exhausted its appeals of legal challenges that sought information about its sales practices. Sandy Hook families were on the point of obtaining documents and answers about how military-style weapons were marketed to young people, said Joshua Koskoff, a lawyer for the families.

Attorneys for the Boy Scouts of America are asking a federal judge in Delaware to take action to protect survivors of child sexual abuse from being misled or confused by advertisements from law firms about their ability to file claims in the organization’s bankruptcy case, the Associated Press reported. The Boy Scouts of America, based in Irving, Texas, sought bankruptcy protection in February in an effort to halt hundreds of individual lawsuits and create a huge compensation fund for men who were molested as youngsters decades ago by scoutmasters or other leaders. The bankruptcy judge earlier this year established a Nov. 16 deadline for victims of child sex abuse to file claims in the bankruptcy case. She also approved processes for potential victims to be notified and submit their claims. The notification process includes a nationwide paid media campaign of print, television, radio and online advertisements that is scheduled to begin Monday and run through Oct. 17. The Boy Scouts have said the notification program is expected to reach more than 100 million people, including more than 95 percent of the primary target audience of men age 50 and older. An expert for the Boy Scouts estimated that men in that age group account for more than half of former Boy Scouts and at least 71 percent of abuse survivors with pending claims against the BSA. But in a court filing this week, attorneys for the Boy Scouts said several law firms — including firms that represent either members of the official bankruptcy committee for abuse victims or a group called the Coalition of Abused Scouts for Justice, which is also involved in the bankruptcy case — have engaged in their own advertising campaigns to try to solicit sexual abuse victims. A lawyer for the Boy Scouts sent a cease-and-desist letter Aug. 10 to attorneys for the committee and the coalition, asking that they distribute the letter to the law firms representing their members and to other firms they knew were engaged in the advertising. But the misleading ads have continued, according to the court filing.

Purdue Pharma LP faced its first court challenge in 2007, pleading guilty to misleading the public about the addictive potential of its flagship painkiller, OxyContin, according to a Bloomberg Businessweek analysis. By 2019 more than 130 people were dying daily from opioid overdoses in the U.S., and Purdue faced thousands of lawsuits for its role in the epidemic. The company, owned by the Sackler family, declared bankruptcy in September of that year to short-circuit the lawsuits. But in the years prior to the bankruptcy, Purdue and its subsidiaries moved billions to companies ultimately registered in Luxembourg, the British Virgin Islands, and Delaware. The trail that traces those billions is labyrinthine, but here’s what we know about their maneuvering based on hundreds of pages of publicly available information. (In a statement, Purdue said that it had “provided the company’s stakeholders and the American public with an extraordinary amount of detailed financial information.” A spokesperson for the family said in a statement, “All of the Sackler family members, including those who served on Purdue’s board, have always conducted themselves properly.”) From 2008 through 2017, $10.8 billion flowed out of Purdue in hundreds of transactions through numerous subsidiaries. (A small percentage of this sum was reinvested in Purdue or lent to and fully repaid by an affiliated company.) After tax bills were settled, the bulk of the cash landed in two Delaware companies, Rosebay Medical Co. and Beacon Co. New York State Attorney General Letitia James’s office has said the Sacklers hid billions of dollars. She’s subpoenaed at least 10 financial institutions connected to the family “in an effort to establish the Sacklers’ fraud,” according to a filing. The subpoenas allege that a portion of the $4.4 billion was used for multimillion-dollar real estate transactions.

As the coronavirus spiraled into a public health crisis this spring, the nation’s largest business lobby identified a critical goal: making sure businesses don’t face legal penalties when new flare-ups in offices, storefronts and factory floors put people in danger, the Washington Post reported. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for Legal Reform wrote draft legislation designed to shield companies from liability related to the pandemic and distributed it to state and federal lawmakers, according to a top executive. It found a welcome audience on Capitol Hill. Senate Republicans have since proposed and ardently defended liability provisions that appeared in the Chamber’s draft legislation, although the final proposed version, called the Safe to Work Act, contained numerous provisions the organization hadn’t flagged. The Chamber says that it is trying to preempt what it thinks will be a coming wave of coronavirus-related lawsuits. The issue has become a sticking point in stalled negotiations over a new federal relief package. Senate Republicans have said they will refuse to negotiate over coronavirus liability protections, and will not agree to any deal that doesn’t include them.

Disgraced Hollywood film mogul and convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein is asking a bankruptcy judge in Delaware to allow him to pursue arbitration in New York over what he claims is his wrongful termination from the company he co-founded, the Associated Press reported. An attorney for Weinstein submitted a court filing last week asking the judge who is presiding over The Weinstein Co. bankruptcy to lift the automatic stay that halts outside legal proceedings involving chapter 11 debtors so he can pursue the arbitration case he filed in 2017. “Newly discovered information and facts, gleaned during the course of investigation and discovery in collateral matters, have yielded evidence that corroborates the wrongful termination claim that is subject of the arbitration,” Weinstein attorney Julia Klein wrote. Klein also said there has been no willful delay in seeking to lift the bankruptcy stay in order to proceed with the arbitration. According to Wednesday’s court filing, Weinstein in 2015 entered into an employment agreement with The Weinstein Co. that includes a provision requiring binding arbitration in New York for any dispute between the parties, including claims for discrimination and for violation of any federal, state or local law. The company fired Weinstein in October 2017 just days after The New York Times published a story detailing decades of sexual harassment allegations made against him by actresses and employees. Weinstein filed an arbitration demand two weeks later, asserting violations of the employment agreement and related state law claims.

A bankruptcy judge in Alabama has shut down a bid by families of Sandy Hook school shooting victims for an official voice in the bankruptcy of weapons maker Remington Outdoor Co., WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. For years, Remington has been defending itself against a lawsuit over its marketing of the weapon used in that December 2012 shooting, but lawyers for the victims have said that the company’s bankruptcy could be the end of the road. A Remington-made Bushmaster Model XM15-E2S was used in the Sandy Hook school shooting, where 20 first-graders and six educators were killed in about 11 minutes. “It’s a story that is told over and over about what happened to the children at that school. My heart bleeds for them,” Judge Clifton Jessup said at a hearing yesterday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Alabama. However, in bankruptcy court, the Sandy Hook victims merely have a claim, the judge said. He turned down their request for a committee to represent people who have been suing the weapons maker during its second bankruptcy, including many that just found out Remington had filed for chapter 11 protection. Until recently, the Sandy Hook plaintiffs “were the only ones who knew what was going on,” said Melissa Larsen, lawyer for the family of a 16-year-old allegedly killed as the result of a defective Remington-made weapon. The company filed for chapter 11 protection July 27, and none of the people who have been suing it made the list of creditors filed at the start of the case, Larsen noted. Other plaintiffs’ lawyers just received the notice of the bankruptcy, which could wipe out their lawsuits, as well as the one the Sandy Hook plaintiffs have been pursuing. Remington said cash was so tight, it had to return to bankruptcy, and it can’t afford to reorganize. The chapter 11 sale process allows Remington to sell its assets free and clear of claims, including the claims from families of nine people killed in the Sandy Hook shooting. Judge Jessup authorized Remington to move ahead with plans for an auction in September, over the protests of the Sandy Hook families.

U.S. states claimed they are owed $2.2 trillion to address harm from OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP’s alleged role in America’s opioid epidemic, accusing the drugmaker in new filings of pushing prescription painkillers on doctors and patients while playing down the risks of abuse and overdose, Reuters reported. In filings made as part of Purdue’s bankruptcy proceedings that were disclosed on Monday, the states said Purdue, backed by the wealthy Sackler family, contributed to a public health crisis that has claimed the lives of roughly 450,000 people since 1999 and caused strains on healthcare and criminal justice systems. The filings cited more than 200,000 deaths in the U.S. tied directly to prescription opioids between 1999 and 2016. In large states such as California and New York, claims alone totaled more than $192 billion and $165 billion, respectively. Forty-nine U.S. states, Washington, D.C. and various territories are making the claims. Oklahoma settled litigation with Purdue last year. Purdue filed for bankruptcy in 2019 under pressure from more than 2,600 lawsuits brought by cities, counties, states, Native American tribes, hospitals and others. The lawsuits said the company, and in some cases the Sacklers, used deceptive marketing and took other improper steps to flood communities with prescription opioids.

Lawyers for Boy Scouts sexual-abuse victims are seeking to reverse a property transfer by a Scouts council in Tennessee to an “asset protection trust,” saying assets are being shifted out of their reach, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The Boy Scouts of America, which filed for bankruptcy this year, says the transfer was proper, according to court papers. Lawyers for victims say moving assets out of their reach endangers the trust the Boy Scouts need if the organization wants to restore confidence in its brand. “The Scouts are in a precarious position with respect to its ability to successfully reorganize,” lawyers for an official bankruptcy committee that represents victims wrote. The Boy Scouts of America said: “All 253 local councils have agreed to share information with the Tort Claimants’ Committee regarding past and future transactions involving their assets. This clearly demonstrates that the BSA and the local councils are committed to working through a productive, mediated process.” The Middle Tennessee Council of the national youth organization transferred five parcels of real estate and other holdings to the trust in June, according to court papers. “Without access to the Middle Tennessee Council’s assets, which are property of BSA’s bankruptcy estate, it will only make it more difficult for BSA to propose a plan that fairly compensates the victims of childhood sexual abuse,” the victims lawyers wrote. The bulk of the Boy Scouts’ wealth — land, investments and other assets — is in the hands of local groups like the Middle Tennessee Council. Like hundreds of other local councils, the Middle Tennessee group, based in Nashville, didn’t file for bankruptcy when the national group did. But the local councils are participating in the bankruptcy negotiations, hoping to win a reprieve from lawsuits that named them as defendants, along with the national organization.