%1

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd has reached a settlement worth $225 million to resolve claims the drugmaker fueled an opioid epidemic in Texas by improperly marketing addictive pain medications, the state's attorney general said yesterday, Reuters reported. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Teva agreed to pay $150 million over 15 years and provide $75 million worth of generic Narcan, a medication used to counter the effects of opioid overdoses. The deal is the largest Teva has struck in the more than 3,500 lawsuits it faces seeking to hold it and other drug companies responsible for an opioid abuse epidemic that led to hundreds of thousands of overdose deaths over the last two decades nationally. The Israeli drugmaker previously settled with Oklahoma and Louisiana. Teva did not admit wrongdoing as part of Monday's settlement. Teva has long sought to resolve the thousands of opioid lawsuits by state, counties and municipalities it faces, offering in 2019 to donate $23 billion in opioid addiction treatment drugs and pay $250 million over 10 years. Attorneys general from four states, including Texas, negotiated that proposal with Teva. But no nationwide settlement agreement ultimately resulted after lawyers for some of the plaintiffs questioned the true value of the drugs.

The Biden administration said yesterday that $725 million in federal funds would be available to states this year to clean up abandoned coal mines, one of several initiatives aimed at reducing pollution from decades of fossil fuel development, Reuters reported. The money represents a portion of the $11.3 billion allocated to mine reclamation in the infrastructure law that Congress passed last year. The program is part of President Joe Biden's pledge to create jobs and improve health and safety while combating climate change. The Interior Department said that it will distribute $725 million every year for the next 15 years to states and tribes based on their needs. For fiscal year 2022, the funding is available to 22 states and the Navajo Nation. Such work could include closing dangerous mine shafts, reclaiming unstable slopes, treating acid mine drainage, and restoring water supplies damaged by mining, Interior said. Pennsylvania is eligible for the most funding, nearly $245 million, followed by West Virginia, Illinois, Kentucky and Ohio. The allocations are based on the number of tons of coal historically produced in each state before the 1977 passage of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, which created a fund for the cleanup of abandoned mine lands.

Johnson & Johnson tried to get a U.S. judge to block Reuters from publishing a story based on what it said were confidential company documents about the healthcare giant's legal maneuvers to fight lawsuits claiming its Baby Powder caused cancer. "The First Amendment is not a license to knowingly violate the law," said the company in a filing late Thursday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New Jersey, where a unit of J&J had sought bankruptcy protection while defending the Baby Powder lawsuits. The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects freedom of the press. On Friday, Reuters reported that J&J secretly launched "Project Plato" last year to shift liability from about 38,000 pending Baby Powder talc lawsuits to a newly created subsidiary, which was then to be put into bankruptcy. By doing so, J&J could limit its financial exposure to the lawsuits. After the publication of the story, Reuters asked U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Michael Kaplan to deny J&J's motion, claiming it was moot. Less than an hour after Reuters submitted its letter, J&J said in a filing that it was withdrawing a request for an immediate hearing on the matter but was "not prepared to agree" that its request regarding the documents was moot. J&J said in its filing after the publication of the story that it intends to continue discussions with Reuters and said it was "heartened that publication of confidential documents may no longer be imminent." J&J's request to block publication was "among the most extraordinary remedies a litigant can request under the law," attorneys for Reuters, a unit of Thomson Reuters, said in a Friday court filing. The news agency's lawyers called J&J's request a "prior restraint of speech on a matter of public interest." J&J said Reuters had obtained documents that were protected from public disclosure by an order from Judge Kaplan. The company demanded that Reuters return the documents and refrain from publishing information gleaned from the documents. Reuters denied that it has confidential information, saying in court papers that the confidentiality of one of the documents was lifted in January and that the second is not in the possession of Reuters.

Pharmaceutical company Mallinckrodt PLC on Thursday won court approval of its reorganization plan, which includes a $1.7 billion settlement of opioid-related litigation, bringing its 16-month bankruptcy close to an end, Reuters reported. Bankruptcy Judge John Dorsey in Wilmington, Del., signed off on the plan in a 103-page written decision. In addition to settling thousands of lawsuits accusing it of deceptively marketing its opioids, the plan allows Mallinckrodt to reduce $5.3 billion in debt by $1.3 billion and hands control of the reorganized company to creditors. Mallinckrodt filed for bankruptcy in October 2020 to resolve more than 3,000 lawsuits from states, local governments and private individuals who accused the company of fueling the opioid epidemic through deceptive marketing, including by playing down the risks of addiction and abuse. The company won the support of committees representing junior creditors and opioid claimants, which had long opposed the plan, for the deal in September. Nearly all U.S. states backed it as well. In approving the plan, Judge Dorsey overruled objections raised by the state of Rhode Island, pharmaceutical company Sanofi, certain insurers and shareholders.

Johnson & Johnson yesterday accused attorneys for people who have sued the pharmaceutical giant over its talc products of sharing confidential documents with Reuters in what it called a “calculated effort” to try its subsidiary’s bankruptcy case in the press, Reuters reported. In a letter filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New Jersey, attorneys for J&J and LTL Management LLC, a bankrupt subsidiary that the company set up to hold its talc liabilities, claimed that lawyers for two committees representing plaintiffs shared at least two confidential documents with the news organization. Lawyers for the plaintiffs’ committees engaged in a “calculated effort” to “try this case in the press rather than in the court,” LTL attorney Gregory Gordon said in a court hearing shortly after the letter was filed. “Counsel for the committees, apparently, are feeding documents to the press. And we’re specifically aware it’s being done with Reuters,” Gordon said. The J&J lawyers said that the documents it said were leaked were subject to a protective order issued by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Michael Kaplan. The letter asks Reuters to return the documents it said were leaked and to refrain from disclosing any confidential information they contain. J&J’s lawyers said that if Reuters declined, they would consider petitioning the court to compel the news organization to do so. A Reuters spokesperson called the claims without merit. Read more. 

In related news, law professors opposed to Johnson & Johnson’s baby powder bankruptcy can help opponents of the company make legal arguments against the controversial chapter 11 case, a judge ruled, Bloomberg Law reported. Bankruptcy Judge Michael B. Kaplan agreed to accept a series of legal papers attacking J&J’s decision to put a unit into bankruptcy as a way of resolving lawsuits filed by more than 38,000 people who claim they were harmed by tainted talc in baby powder. Kaplan is scheduled to hold a trial later this month of whether to dismiss the bankruptcy case as requested by lawyers for the talc victims. Read more. (Subscription required.) 

A committee representing consumers suing Johnson & Johnson over its talcum-based baby powder products is challenging a bid to use bankruptcy to freeze litigation against the company and retailers that sold the product, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The committee, which represents consumers who allege exposure to J&J’s talcum products caused cancer, said in a court filing on Tuesday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Trenton, N.J., that pausing civil lawsuits against J&J, which is not in bankruptcy, could prevent tens of thousands of people dying from ovarian cancer and mesothelioma from having their day in court. J&J faces about 38,000 talc-injury cases that alleged talc-based Johnson’s Baby Powder contained asbestos, a cancer-causing mineral, an allegation J&J has denied. The consumer goods giant moved the talc-injury cases to bankruptcy court last year through a newly formed subsidiary, which filed for chapter 11 in October. J&J stopped selling talcum powder-based products in the U.S. and Canada in 2020 and has maintained that the powder is safe and doesn’t contain asbestos.

The Diocese of Camden has announced a plan to distribute $90 million to survivors of clergy sex abuse, well above its original offer of $10 million as part of a bankruptcy action, the Cherry Hill (N.J.) Courier Post reported. But the proposal was promptly rebuffed by a lawyer for a committee representing sex-abuse survivors. The two sides have clashed repeatedly over the amount of funds to be provided to sex-abuse survivors, with the committee alleging the diocese has undervalued its assets to reduce its exposure. The proposed fund, if approved in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, would be used to resolve some 300 claims, the diocese said in a statement Wednesday night. The diocese would provide “the bulk” of the money, but its parishes “will also contribute a portion,” the statement said. It offered no specifics. It acknowledged the proposal “will cause concern in many parishioners due to its size. However, it is necessary.” “While this settlement may cause the diocese some restriction, it ultimately allows parishes, schools and ministries within the diocese to continue their important work,” the statement said. The diocese filed for chapter 11 protection from creditors in October 2020, citing the financial burden of sex-abuse lawsuits and the pandemic. It initially offered $10 million to settle sex-abuse claims, an amount that rose to $53 million by October 2021. The diocese said its new plan includes $30 million from insurers, who agreed to the payment after a 10-hour mediation session last month.

A federal bankruptcy court judge on Monday extended the deadline for the Diocese of Norwich, Conn., to file its bankruptcy plan to April 15. The deadline had been Feb. 4, The (New London, Conn.) Day reported. After the plan is filed, it will be sent to the creditors of the Roman Catholic diocese for approval by June 14. During that 60-day period, the committee that represents a large group of people, who say they were sexually assaulted by priests and employees affiliated with the diocese, will discuss the proposed plan with the diocese. All creditors of the diocese, including the victims of sexual assault, will vote whether to accept the plan. Eric Henzy, one of the attorneys who represents the creditors' committee, said yesterday that it will not be known how many victims have filed claims with the diocese until March 15, the deadline for doing so. That number could reach 100 or more. The diocese filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in July as it faced more than 60 lawsuits filed by men who say they were sexually assaulted as boys by Christian Brothers and other staff at the diocese-run Mount Saint John Academy, a school for troubled boys, in Deep River from 1990 to 2002. Since then additional people, whose sexual assault allegations involved not only the school but diocesan churches, have filed claims in the bankruptcy case.

The Pennsylvania attorney general's office on Wednesday charged a unit of Energy Transfer LP with nine counts of environmental crimes related to construction of the Revolution natural gas pipe in the western part of the state, Reuters reported. A portion of the 24-inch (61-centimeter) pipe failed in an explosion after heavy rains caused a landslide in Center Township in Beaver County on Sept. 10, 2018. The resulting fire destroyed a nearby home, damaged power lines and burned several acres of surrounding woodland. Attorney General Josh Shapiro said in a release that his office charged Energy Transfer's ETC Northeast Pipeline LLC unit with two counts of discharging industrial waste, two counts of discharging other pollutants, two counts of potential pollution and three counts of unlawful conduct. The charges came a few months after the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission approved a nearly $2 million settlement with Energy Transfer for the same explosion. Pipelines owned by Dallas-based Energy Transfer have had multiple problems in recent years in Pennsylvania.