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Most of a highly toxic chemical stored at a fire-damaged Philadelphia oil refinery has been rendered inert, clearing the way for closer inspections of the site following a June blaze that led to the plant’s closure, Reuters reported. About 340,000 pounds of hydrofluoric acid (HF) stored at Philadelphia Energy Solutions’ refinery was chemically neutralized, Philadelphia Fire Commissioner Adam Thiel said. HF can burn the skin and form a potentially deadly fog at room temperature. The process “substantially reduces the risk to the community,” Thiel said, noting some HF acid still remained at the site. Initial phases of the fire probes, including data gathering, have largely been completed, Thiel said. HF is used by more than one-third of U.S. refineries in the alkylation process to make high-octane gasoline. PES’s alkylation unit was destroyed in a fire and series of blasts on June 21 just minutes after the chemical was dumped into a safety vessel. The HF in that vessel has been neutralized, Thiel said. Since the fire, PES has closed the refinery complex, which was the largest and oldest on the East Coast, and filed for chapter 11 protection. Most of the roughly 1,100 PES workers have been laid off without health benefits, including 640 union employees. PES on Thursday asked the bankruptcy judge to hire investigations and crisis management attorneys to advise the company on the seven federal, state and local investigations into the cause of the June blasts, court documents show.

A proposed deal for Purdue Pharma LP to resolve more than 2,000 lawsuits over its role in the opioid crisis is facing pushback from a vocal group of state attorneys general who say it doesn’t bring in enough cash to satisfy their demands, the Wall Street Journal reported. Virtually every state, in addition to thousands of cities and counties across the U.S., sued Purdue, claiming the company’s aggressive promotion of its painkiller OxyContin helped trigger an addiction epidemic. Some states, including New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts, have in recent days criticized a proposed settlement with Purdue valued at as much as $12 billion. Among the states’ concerns is the deal’s reliance on future drug sales, how much money will be guaranteed and the Purdue-owning Sackler family’s contribution. Under the current proposal, Purdue would file for bankruptcy and emerge as a public-benefit corporation run by trustees. That proposal, which is still in flux, would include $3 billion in cash from the Sackler family. Much of the rest of the value, however, is tied to future sales of OxyContin, other drugs in development and the possible sale of another Sackler-owned company. The Sacklers would cede ownership of Purdue through the bankruptcy and sell a separate company, Mundipharma, which sells drugs outside the U.S., effectively severing any connection the family has to opioid sales. Under the proposal, the Mundipharma sale could bring in another $1.5 billion to benefit the local and state governments suing Purdue, contingent on the sale price.

Drugmaker Purdue Pharma is negotiating a multibillion-dollar settlement with lawyers for local and state governments that would resolve about 2,000 lawsuits against the company, which would declare bankruptcy as part of the deal, the Washington Post reported. The Sackler family, which owns the company, would relinquish control and contribute at least $3 billion in personal funds to the settlement, which could total as much as $12 billion. Leaders of the 2,000 plaintiffs in a consolidated lawsuit pending in federal court are seriously considering the offer. The proposed deal, first reported Tuesday by NBC News, has been in the works for months and was discussed at a meeting in Cleveland last week called by U.S. District Judge Dan Aaron Polster, who oversees the sprawling federal lawsuit scheduled to get underway in mid-October. Judge Polster, who has encouraged the parties to settle rather than go to trial, told the parties to report back to him Friday. Details about the talks come a day after an Oklahoma judge found health-care giant Johnson & Johnson responsible for fueling the state’s opioid epidemic and ordered it to pay $572 million to help abate the crisis. In addition to Oklahoma, more than 40 other states have filed lawsuits in their own courts against Purdue and other companies in the pharmaceutical industry. The deal under discussion would cover the federal and state lawsuits, according to sources.

An Oklahoma judge found Johnson & Johnson and Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies liable for stoking the opioid crisis in the state and said the company must pay $572 million, far less than the $17 billion that the state was seeking, FoxBusiness.com reported. Judge Thad Balkman, of Cleveland County District Court in Norman, Oklahoma, is the first judge to rule in the opioid cases brought to trial by thousands of state and local governments against opioid manufacturers and distributors. His precedent-setting ruling was being closely watched as 2,000 other pending suits await to be heard before a federal judge in Ohio in October. Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter brought the case to trial for seven weeks, arguing the pharmaceutical company executed an intensive marketing campaign that overwhelmed the market and mislead consumers about the addictive risks of the drug. Oklahoma escalated the trial after resolving claims against OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP in March for $270 million and against Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd in May for $85 million, with only J&J remaining as a defendant.

Harvey Weinstein learned yesterday that life as a defendant carries more restrictions than his former job as a Hollywood power broker, after a New York judge scolded him for repeatedly texting during court hearings, including at an arraignment where he pleaded not guilty to sexual-assault charges, Bloomberg News reported. New York Supreme Court Judge James M. Burke confronted Weinstein after a brief recess, after officers in the Manhattan courtroom saw the movie mogul using his phone during the hearing and in earlier proceedings. Weinstein was in court to face a revised indictment that prosecutors drafted to allow “The Sopranos” actress Annabella Sciorra to testify against him. He had been previously accused of sexually assaulting two other women, but prosecutors sought to have Sciorra testify at the trial that Weinstein sexually assaulted her. He faces charges that carry terms of up to life in prison. The trial had been set for Sept. 9, but Burke postponed it until Jan. 6 because of the revised indictment. Weinstein and his brother Bob started Miramax in 1979 and gained a reputation for creating edgy and critically acclaimed fare, including “Sex, Lies and Videotape,” “Clerks” and “Shakespeare in Love.” Walt Disney Co. acquired the company in 1993, and it changed hands multiple times since then. The brothers founded Weinstein Co. in 2005. That business went into bankruptcy after sexual-assault claims were brought against Harvey Weinstein.

PG&E Corp. CEO Bill Johnson personally urged state lawmakers yesterday to let the company take on billions of dollars in new debt to help pay victims of catastrophic wildfires caused by its power lines, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Johnson traveled to Sacramento to advocate for legislation that would allow PG&E to use as much as $20 billion in tax-exempt bonds as part of the company’s plan to resolve its bankruptcy case. PG&E unsuccessfully tried to get the bonds authorized as part of a different bill the Legislature passed last month to address future electric utility fire costs, and the company is now making a renewed push for the financing tool to help resolve its liabilities from the past. Combined with billions of dollars in proceeds from selling new stock in PG&E, the bonds are intended to raise enough money to pay claims from victims of wildfires started by the utility’s equipment, including last year’s historically deadly and destructive Camp Fire. PG&E says that the bonds would be paid off with shareholder profits and would not raise customers’ rates. Read more. 

In related news, PG&E Corp. conducted an unusual inspection of the power line that sparked the deadliest wildfire in California history just weeks before it failed, a step the utility has said that it normally takes only when it suspects a potential safety problem, the Wall Street Journal reported. The disclosure that workers climbed portions of the Caribou-Palermo line last fall, which PG&E noted in a recent court filing, suggests that the company had concerns about the condition of its lines before the Camp Fire, which killed 86 people and destroyed the town of Paradise. The Nov. 8 fire is now being investigated by state and local authorities, which could ultimately lead to criminal charges against PG&E and its executives. A PG&E spokeswoman said that the company performed inspections of about 80 towers on the Caribou-Palermo line before the Camp Fire as part of a larger effort to determine “the condition of its aging transmission lines.” Read more. (Subscription required.) 

Seven months after a state agency absolved PG&E Corp. of blame for a deadly 2017 wildfire, the utility giant faces the potential of billions in new legal liabilities — and it’s unclear how it would pay for them, Bloomberg News reported. Despite the fact that investigators said that PG&E wasn’t responsible for the Tubbs Fire that killed 22 people, a bankruptcy judge has ruled that jurors should decide whether the company is to blame. The decision could expose PG&E to $18 billion or more in claims. It sent the stock plunging 25 percent yesterday, the most since the utility signaled it would file for chapter 11 in January. The ruling has implications for PG&E’s bankruptcy. The company, which has a market value of about $5.6 billion, already has taken roughly $18 billion in charges for wildfires blamed on its equipment. But while its been lobbying for state legislation that would allow it to raise billions by issuing tax-free municipal bonds, the utility’s reorganization plan will now almost certainly need to include even more money for fire victims.

PG&E Corp. scored a crucial win Friday, when the judge overseeing its massive bankruptcy allowed it to hold on to sole rights to fashion a chapter 11 exit plan, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Bankruptcy Judge Dennis Montali in San Francisco turned down requests from two groups of creditors who have been rounding up billions of dollars in financial commitments to back their versions of a chapter 11 exit proposal for PG&E. Facing an estimated $30 billion in damage claims from wildfires linked to its equipment, California’s largest utility filed for bankruptcy protection in January. This week, PG&E outlined a chapter 11 exit strategy that brings in new money and protects the value of its shares. The company said that it would file that plan by Sept. 9, the first step in a series of bankruptcy court events that are necessary to get it out of chapter 11. Creditors must vote, and PG&E’s plan must survive legal challenges. PG&E argued it needed to hang on to control to head off a bankruptcy court brawl among rival plan proponents, which could delay the proceedings. Judge Montali sided with PG&E, citing the need to speed the bankruptcy case along, to get money to fire victims.

Finding a buyer for Philadelphia Energy Solutions’ oil refinery has grown urgent as the bankrupt company’s funds dwindle and no signs emerge that it is winning a fight for insurance payouts after a June blaze at the plant, according to court documents and bankruptcy experts, Reuters reported. Without access to the more than $1 billion in insurance coverage, selling the refinery has become one of the company’s only options to raise cash before being forced to liquidate. At least three parties have potential proposals to buy the shuttered Philadelphia refinery, each with plans to reopen the 1,300-acre site with a mix of oil refining and alternative energy production. Initial meetings are scheduled between the prospective buyers and a collection of vetters over the next several weeks, but it is unclear how long it would take for any official bid to come together. PES was not available for comment on whether it had reviewed any of the proposals or how viable it considered them to be. For the second time in less than two years, PES filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy on July 21, exactly a month after fire and blasts destroyed an alkylation unit at the 335,000-barrel-per-day refinery. PES shut its final crude unit in late July, and more than 600 workers are in the process of being laid off without severance pay or the option for continued health insurance. The company has no prepackaged arrangement to restructure the business or income from running the refinery, the largest in the U.S. Northeast, raising the likelihood it will be forced to liquidate.