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EnPro Industries and a bankrupt subsidiary, Garlock Sealing Technologies, have struck a deal with a plaintiffs' lawyer to set aside $357.5 million to cover asbestos related claims, but others are expected to oppose the deal, Reuters reported yesterday. EnPro and Garlock, a bankrupt maker of asbestos-lined gaskets, said on Tuesday that the agreement could be approved in 15 to 24 months as part of an amended reorganization plan it will submit to the North Carolina court where Garlock filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in June 2010. If approved, the plan would allow a reorganized Garlock to shed its liability for asbestos litigation, the latest phase in a bankruptcy touted by manufacturers as fundamentally shifting the legal terrain in asbestos cases in their favor.

Victims of the Lac-Megantic oil-by-rail disaster that killed 47 people in the Canadian province of Quebec in 2013 agreed to a nearly $200 million settlement with some of the firms involved, including the insolvent rail operator at the center of the tragedy, Reuters reported on Saturday. Montreal Maine and Atlantic, along with its insurers, founder Edward Burkhardt, and various other companies, will pay into the settlement fund, which will be distributed to the victims of the train derailment and explosion, according to lawyer Peter Flowers of Meyers & Flowers. A draft plan of the arrangement was filed in the Quebec Superior Court on Friday as part of MMA's bankruptcy proceedings in Canada and a similar plan will also be filed in a U.S. court. The settlement is subject to approval by the courts.

Three former executives pleaded not guilty yesterday to charges stemming from a chemical spill that fouled drinking water for about 300,000 West Virginians, Reuters reported today. Prosecutors in December accused Freedom Industries Inc, its former president Gary Southern and other officers of negligence and fraud after the discharge of a chemical pollutant into the Elk River near Charleston a year ago. The leak of a chemical foam used to wash coal breached a containment area one mile upstream of a water treatment and distribution plant near Charleston, W. Va., according to the charges. Company officials were also accused of failing to maintain the containment area and failing to properly inspect the tank containing the chemical. Southern, who was arrested in early December in Florida and released after posting a $100,000 bond, pleaded not guilty yesterday.

General Motors Co. closed 2014 by issuing three new safety recalls covering more than 83,780 large sport-utility vehicles and pickup trucks, lifting the number of recall campaigns disclosed by the auto maker during the year to 84, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The largest of the three covers an electrical-system defect potentially affecting 83,572 Cadillac Escalade and Chevrolet Yukons from the 2011 and 2012 model years. The ignition-lock actuator may bind, making turning the key difficult or causing the ignition to get stuck in the “start” position, the company said. No crashes or injuries have been reported, and fewer than 500 vehicles are expected to have been affected.

At least 42 people are known to have died in crashes linked to the defective ignition switch, and both GM and federal safety regulators have come under fire for allowing the danger to linger for more than a decade, the New York Times reported today. But the experience of some accident victims and their families shows that other opportunities to raise public alarm bells — through the legal system — were also lost. Lawyers said they were aware of six ignition-related lawsuits that the automaker had settled out of court, including some under arrangements that barred public disclosures about them. Companies, lawyers and judges have long faced criticism for suppressing information contained in lawsuits about product dangers. However, legal experts said that factors such as tort reform and rising lawsuit costs might be further dimming the legal system’s role in bringing such risks to light. Those experts said that the incentives for plaintiffs’ lawyers to invest large sums of money in a case that may or not serve as a kind of legal canary in a coal mine have been diminished. “It is harder to win,” added John C. P. Goldberg, a law professor at Harvard University. Beginning several decades ago, companies, insurers and others, pointing to instances of excessive jury awards and frivolous lawsuits, pushed state lawmakers to pass measures that would reduce awards and limit filings. Since then, many states have capped awards for noneconomic damages such as pain and suffering, limited punitive damage awards or changed how liability is assessed.

Years of contamination at a Southern California lead-acid battery-recycling plant caused severe health problems for local residents, including cancer and kidney failure, according to a new lawsuit, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. The suit, brought against directors and officers of Exide Technologies, was filed on Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court. Plaintiffs attorney Robert Mandell said yesterday that the suit is one of five that he and three other lawyers plan to bring related to the alleged effect of an Exide plant in Vernon, Calif. The group's 475 clients include children and adults who say they became ill from exposure to lead and arsenic used at the plant, as well as the families of roughly a dozen people who have died from apparent exposure.

East Millinocket, Maine, will receive six months of wastewater treatment from a bankrupt paper mill, after a federal judge on Thursday allowed the mill’s estate to loan as much as $250,000 to the town to cover treatment plant operations, the Bangor Daily News reported today. U.S. District Court Judge Louis Kornreich granted trustee’s attorney Shawn Doil’s request to offer the $250,000 loan during a brief appearance at the Margaret Chase Smith Federal Building. The money, Doil said, will come from the estate of GNP Holdings, one of two Great Northern Paper Co. corporations that have filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection. That estate has $1.2 million in assets to secure the loan. The town and state have until Aug. 5 to repay it, she said.

The trust representing creditors of the bankruptcy General Motors Corp. estate asked a federal judge to reject efforts by “new GM” to pay ignition switch claims using funds set aside for creditors of the “old” Detroit automaker that filed for bankruptcy in 2009, the Detroit News reported today. “These issues will be decided by bankruptcy court,” GM spokesman James Cain said. “Our motion to enforce the sale order sets forth the company’s positions on these issues, which we continue to believe are correct.” Detroit-based General Motors Co. emerged from bankruptcy in July 2009 as a new government-sponsored firm created from the “good assets” of the 100-year-old automaker. The old company remains in bankruptcy as does GM’s liability for incidents before the filing. GM has been sued more than 170 times seeking billions of dollars including for the reduced value of GM cars after its recall of 2.6 million older cars linked to 42 deaths and 58 injuries for ignition switch defects. In May, the company agreed to pay a record-setting $35 million fine to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for delaying disclosure of the deadly defects for a decade. It also agreed to intense oversight of up to three years by the agency.

Fourteen officials, pharmacists and technicians tied to the Massachusetts company involved in a meningitis outbreak that killed 64 people were indicted on charges including racketeering and second-degree murder, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The New England Compounding Center’s tainted drugs, including a steroid administered by spinal injection to treat pain, infected 751 people in 20 states, U.S. officials have said. The 2012 outbreak was caused by sloppy clean-room practices, including routine failure to properly sterilize drugs, according to the indictment unsealed today in Boston. Barry Cadden, NECC’s former president and lead pharmacist, and Glenn Chin, a supervising pharmacist who was arrested at a Boston airport in September, are accused of second-degree murder over the deaths of dozens of people in states including Indiana, Maryland and Florida. The company, formerly New England Compounding Pharmacy Inc., suspended operations and filed for bankruptcy protection in December 2012 as a result of lawsuits by victims and families. The company and its insurers in August won court approval of a settlement of almost $100 million.

A former Freedom Industries Inc. president was charged for the second time this month in connection with a West Virginia chemical spill that contaminated water for 300,000 residents, this time in an indictment accusing him and three company officials with polluting the Elk River near Charleston, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Federal prosecutors also announced separate charges today against two other people, a plant manager and environmental consultant, for violating the federal Clean Water Act. The leak from one of Freedom’s tanks sent about 7,500 gallons (28,400 liters) of a cleaning agent used in coal-mining operations into the river, contaminating drinking water in the state’s largest city and sending more than 100 residents to the hospital. Earlier this month, Gary Southern, Freedom’s former president, was accused by the government of lying in the company’s bankruptcy filing, which was triggered by lawsuits following the spill.