PG&E Corp.’s court-appointed compliance monitor concluded the utility isn’t trimming trees that pose wildfire threats in high-risk areas of California and didn’t train its contractors properly, Bloomberg News reported. The monitor, Mark Filip, on Wednesday wrote to U.S. District Judge William Alsup, saying that he uncovered “significant, actionable findings,” including record-keeping deficiencies. Inspections are “not only revealing individual trees that are missed, including three active wildfire threats in high-risk areas, but they also reflect gaps in processes, for example, contractor training,” the monitor said. The findings risk infuriating Alsup, who has repeatedly admonished PG&E over its failures and recklessness, and strained to arrive at a punishment that will spur the company to strengthen its fire-prevention efforts. That the monitor has uncovered hazards PG&E arguably should’ve found on its own doesn’t bode well for the utility, or its new Chief Executive Officer Bill Johnson, at a Sept. 17 hearing the judge scheduled to discuss Filip’s findings.
More than 400 lawsuits have been filed in New York as part of a new child sex abuse law that expands the ways that survivors can use the legal system to address the damage, CNN.com reported. The New York Child Victims Act, which was signed into law on February 14, created a one-year period when any adult survivors of child sexual abuse can sue an abuser or a negligent institution, no matter how long ago the abuse took place. That period began on Wednesday. In New York City, 169 cases were filed, said Lucian Chalfen, a spokesman for the New York Unified Court System, said in an email. Another 258 cases were filed outside of New York City. In all, 427 lawsuits have been filed, he said. The state court system was expecting so many lawsuits that 45 judges have been set aside to deal exclusively with the influx of cases, Chalfen said.
The massive Pacific Gas and Electric Co. bankruptcy approached its most controversial juncture yet yesterday when attorneys debated how the case should treat victims of a 2017 Wine Country wildfire the state says was not started by the utility’s power lines, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. California investigators said in January that PG&E was not responsible for the Tubbs Fire, which destroyed more than 5,600 buildings and killed about two dozen people in the Santa Rosa area. But lawyers for fire victims vehemently disagree with the state’s conclusion, and they now want U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Dennis Montali to let them try their case before a jury in state court. PG&E opposes that request and has asked Montali to instead move forward with estimating all of the company’s wildfire liabilities through the bankruptcy process. The company does not accept any blame for the Tubbs Fire, which was the most destructive blaze of its kind in state history until a PG&E tower broke 13 months later and started the Camp Fire. No matter which court ultimately tackles the question of whether PG&E is responsible for the Tubbs Fire, the answer could have a multibillion-dollar impact. If a judge or jury decides the company is responsible, it would make the company’s exit from chapter 11 protection far more costly. Read more.
In related news, hedge funds including Olympus Peak Asset Management LP and Whitebox Advisors LLC are buying up claims vendors have filed against PG&E, aiming to cash in, Bloomberg News reported. In many cases, vendors are recouping around 90 cents on every dollar PG&E owes them. But they’re paid quickly, without having to wait for the bankruptcy process to wrap up. The hedge funds, which can afford to wait, profit on the difference between the amount they pay the vendors and the money they will eventually get from the utility. Already vendors have sold off claims against PG&E worth a total of about $470 million. The company, whose service territory covers more than 40 percent of the state, filed for chapter 11 in January facing an estimated $30 billion in liabilities from a string of deadly wildfires that, in some cases, were blamed on its equipment. PG&E listed a total of $51.7 billion in debt. As of Monday, about 325 PG&E claim sales had been recorded with the bankruptcy court. Whitebox bought more than 100, and Olympus Peak scooped up 25. Read more.
Starting yesterday, survivors of child sexual abuse have one year in New York state to file suit against their alleged abusers and against institutions such as churches and schools that protected those abusers, the Washington Post reported. The one-year window will permit a flood of cases that were previously disallowed in the state because of a strict statute of limitations that prevented victims from suing after they turned 23. The state’s eight Catholic dioceses are the likely target of many of the suits that will be filed Wednesday and throughout the one-year window, but far from the only institution. The Boy Scouts expect a large number of lawsuits. Schools, Jewish groups, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and other churches and youth organizations also are likely to face suits that couldn’t be brought before because the victims kept their abuse secret for too long to bring a case under state law.
PG&E Corp. says that it expects to file its plan for reorganization with the bankruptcy court by Sept. 9 and sees emerging from chapter 11 protection by May 1, Bloomberg News reported. The bankrupt utility says in the filing that it has $10.5 billion in equity commitments with more than 20 financial institutions signed up to help fund its recovery plan. PG&E says that several financial institutions have expressed confidence that they can raise $35 billion to $40 billion of both debt and equity capital to satisfy claims, refinance indebtedness, and address other bankruptcy related and post-emergence uses. The company said that the plan values the reorganized equity in multiples higher than proposed in a competing bid by an ad hoc group of bondholders led by Pacific Investment Management Co. and Elliott Management Corp. Read more.
In related news, PG&E said yesterday that it had received more proposals for equity commitments to support the company’s reorganization, following an earlier offer by hedge funds Knighthead Capital Management and Abrams Capital Management, Reuters reported. The commitments currently exceed $12 billion, the company said in a statement. Last week, shareholders Knighthead Capital and Abrams proposed raising $15 billion in equity to fund a planned reorganization of PG&E, which is facing over $30 billion in liabilities from severe wildfires in California. The proposed fundraising, a rights offering of new shares, is the latest effort to rescue the power producer, which sought chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier this year. Read more.
USA Gymnastics last year was given the death penalty by U.S. Olympic officials for its handling of decades-long sexual abuse by women’s team physician Larry Nassar. Yet as it crowned Simone Biles with her sixth all-around national title here this weekend, the disgraced gymnastics federation acted like an organization confident its sentence would be commuted, the Wall Street Journal reported. As Biles soared, USA Gymnastics claimed record attendance and revenue. It welcomed the president of the International Gymnastics Federation Morinari Watanabe as a special guest. It hosted ticket sellers offering seats at the Olympic team trials that USA Gymnastics will run in St. Louis next year in conjunction with its would-be executioner, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee. And it said it was probably about to go out and start speaking again with potential sponsors. It’s been nine months since the then-U.S. Olympic Committee began its bid to decertify USA Gymnastics, a move that would strip it of its status as the national governing body for the sport in the U.S. But it’s been eight months since USA Gymnastics announced it was entering bankruptcy proceedings, facing hundreds of lawsuits from women and girls alleging they were among those assaulted by Nassar under the guise of medical treatment. The bankruptcy secured a reprieve for USA Gymnastics, because the decertification process was stayed as part of the chapter 11 proceedings.
Power producer PG&E Corp said on Friday that it is evaluating a proposal from hedge funds Knighthead Capital Management and Abrams Capital Management to provide equity capital commitments supporting a plan to reorganize the company, Reuters reported. Shareholders Knighthead Capital and Abrams in a letter to PG&E on Thursday proposed raising $15 billion in equity to fund a planned reorganization of the power producer, which is facing huge liabilities from California wildfires. The proposed fundraising, a rights offering of new shares, is the latest effort to rescue PG&E, which sought chapter 11 protection earlier this year after severe wildfires in 2017 and 2018 resulted in more than $30 billion in liabilities. Knighthead and Abrams pledged to purchase a portion of the offered equity if shares are left unsold through a so-called backstop commitment.
PG&E Corp. shareholders are proposing raising $15 billion in equity to fund a planned reorganization of the power producer facing huge liabilities from California wildfires, according to a company filing, Reuters reported. The proposed fundraising, a rights offering of selling new shares, is the latest effort to rescue PG&E, which sought chapter 11 protection earlier this year after severe wildfires in 2017 and 2018 resulted in more than $30 billion in liabilities. The California utility currently has the sole right to put forward a reorganization plan, although other investors have asked a judge to allow them to do so as well. Hedge funds Knighthead Capital Management and Abrams Capital Management, the shareholders that made the proposal in a letter to PG&E, pledged to purchase a portion of the offered equity if shares are left unsold through a so-called backstop commitment, the filing showed.
The Archdiocese of Agaña is facing dozens of lawsuits related to clerical sexual abuse, and is encouraging any other alleged victims to contact the archdiocese before the deadline to file lawsuits expires this month, CatholicNewsAgency.com reported. More than 220 former altar boys, students, and Boy Scouts are suing the archdiocese over sexual assaults by 35 clergy, teachers and scoutmasters. The last day to file a claim against the archdiocese is Aug. 15. In 2016, Guam's territorial legislature eliminated the statute of limitations for civil lawsuits involving child sexual abuse. Former Archbishop Anthony Apuron was found guilty of some of several abuse-related charges by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith last year. In January 2019, the archdiocese filed for bankruptcy in federal court in the wake of numerous sex abuse allegations. The move, decided upon in November 2018, allows the archdiocese to avoid trial and to begin to reach settlements in the abuse lawsuits, which amount to over $115 million.
A group of lawyers is claiming to have uncovered hundreds of previously unreported cases of sexual abuse in the Boy Scouts, according to a lawsuit filed on Monday in Pennsylvania, the Washington Post reported. The plaintiff in the case, named only as S.D. to keep his identity private, is alleging that he was assaulted “hundreds” of times by a scout leader in Pennsylvania over the course of about four years in the 1970s. The lawsuit alleges that S.D.'s abuse would not have been possible had it not been for the negligence of the Boy Scouts, that the organization conspired to keep incidents of sexual assault a secret, and that the organization and other defendants engaged in “reckless misconduct” in failing to protect its young participants. The complaint names the Boy Scouts, the Penn Mountains Council, and S.D.'s alleged abuser, and was filed in Philadelphia’s Court of Common Pleas. The litigation stems from an attempt to unearth previously unreported cases of child sexual abuse in one of the country’s most prominent youth organizations, spearheaded by Abused in Scouting, a group of law firms that collaborate on bringing such cases to light. For decades, the Boy Scouts organization has kept detailed files, known as the ineligible volunteer files, that documented thousands of pedophiles known to have preyed on children. In the past decade, a large tranche of the documents became public through lawsuits and investigative reporting. But those records may be incomplete. Included in S.D.'s lawsuit is a claim that Abused in Scouting has identified more than 350 people who do not appear in the ineligible volunteer files, S.D.'s alleged abuser among them.
