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September 24, 2026
HOUSTON — The Chapter 11 case of defunct talc supplier BMI Oldco Inc. should be dismissed because the company is “administratively insolvent” and has “no operating business to reorganize, no realistic prospect of rehabilitation, de minimis income, and insufficient assets to pay the costs of administering” the case, the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors says in its second attempt to have the case tossed.
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September 22, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. —The U.S. Supreme Court should “protect the integrity of the bankruptcy system” and “safeguard claimants’ constitutional rights to seek redress in the nation’s civil justice system” by putting a stop to the growing practice by wealthy corporations of shedding their asbestos liabilities through a restructuring known as the “Texas Two-Step,” asbestos claimants in the Chapter 11 case of CertainTeed LLC spinoff DBMP LLC say in a petition for a writ of certiorari.
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September 22, 2026
HOUSTON — A Texas federal bankruptcy judge entered a final decree on Sept. 21 closing the Chapter 11 case of cosmetics ingredients producer Miyoshi America Inc. less than five months after the company filed for bankruptcy with a prepackaged plan of reorganization in hand, saying entry of the decree “is in the best interests of the Reorganized Debtor, its creditors, and other parties in interest.”
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September 22, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a pair of petitions to the U.S. Supreme Court, various entities related to Cape PLC said a South Carolina Supreme Court ruling allowing the appointment of a receiver over an English company ignores precedent and gives state courts too much power over foreign entities.
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September 22, 2026
NEW ORLEANS — A Louisiana federal judge dismissed an asbestos case against a railway after the parties reached a settlement, ending litigation in which a judge granted a railway’s request for whole-genome sequencing and allowed the late disclosure of expert testimony, citing its importance to the case.
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September 22, 2026
SEATTLE — A woman asked a federal judge in Washington for immediate remand of her asbestos-talc case, saying that a company’s removal came outside any of the four 30-day windows available to it and the court does not have “related to” jurisdiction over the claims simply because a district court agreed to decide whether there was asbestos in a bankrupt talc supplier’s product.
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September 14, 2026
WILMINGTON, Del. — The Delaware federal bankruptcy court should approve the disclosure statement for the reorganization plan of new Chapter 11 asbestos debtor and bath product maker Vi-Jon LLC on an interim basis because it provides “adequate information” to claimants who will vote on whether to accept the plan, the debtor says.
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September 14, 2026
TRENTON, N.J. — A New Jersey federal bankruptcy judge should not rule on the adequacy of the disclosure statement for the reorganization plan of new Chapter 11 debtors Uniroyal Holding Inc. and an affiliate because the document that sets out how the debtors’ postbankruptcy asbestos personal injury trust will operate has not been filed yet, three of the debtors’ insurers argue in their objection to the proposed statement.
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September 10, 2026
SEATTLE — In a quartet of filings in a pair of cases, American International Industries and related entities removed a couple’s claims against them, noted that the asbestos-talc action related to BMI Oldco Inc.’s ongoing bankruptcy and asked for transfer to a Texas federal court set to consider whether BMI’s talc contained sufficient levels of asbestos to cause disease and for a stay of litigation while the court makes its determination.
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September 10, 2026
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A panel of the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed remand of an asbestos action on Sept. 9, finding that General Electric Co.’s provision of turbines to the U.S. Navy did not give it a colorable federal contractor defense to a woman’s claims stemming from her husband’s work at one of the company’s commercial facilities.
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September 08, 2026
NEW ORLEANS — A Louisiana jury hearing an asbestos-talc case against Johnson & Johnson awarded a pair $10 million for a woman’s malignant epithelioid mesothelioma, apportioning the company 9% of the liability, sources told Mealey Publications.
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September 08, 2026
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A non-debtor affiliate of Barretts Minerals Inc. subject to suit for testing of talc told the California Supreme Court it is not subject to jurisdiction in California and is entitled to an explanation from the appellate court for why it denied a writ. But in an answer, the plaintiff says it is the testing that allowed the talc to find its way to the state.
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August 28, 2026
EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. — Parties to a federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) suit in Illinois involving asbestos attorneys and a pipe manufacturer debated the scope of an order denying a motion to stay discovery and whether a pending motion to dismiss warrants granting a renewed motion seeking a stay.
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August 27, 2026
WILMINGTON, Del. — The Delaware Supreme Court denied reargument, leaving in place a ruling holding that discovery rules didn’t permit third parties in asbestos litigation to intervene to block asbestos bankruptcy trusts’ document retention policies allowing the trusts to destroy older claims data that the third parties warned constituted an “unprecedented spoliation of evidence.”
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August 27, 2026
SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Talc producer and Chapter 11 debtor Vanderbilt Minerals LLC has filed a plan of liquidation and the plan’s disclosure statement in New York federal bankruptcy court, saying in a motion for approval of the disclosure statement that the document provides “adequate information” under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code to allow asbestos claimants and other creditors to vote on whether to accept the plan.
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August 25, 2026
WILMINGTON, Del. — Repeat litigants seeking to preserve asbestos trust documents told the Delaware Supreme Court that its ruling allowing the destruction to go forward looked at the case too narrowly and threatened “unprecedented spoliation of evidence” and that the court should grant leave to amend to meet the new equitable bill-of-discovery test the court created.
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August 24, 2026
WILMINGTON, Del. — The Delaware Supreme Court is set to decide causation and whether to affirm a $9 million verdict for plaintiffs in an asbestos case involving shotgun shell wads after the parties recently wrapped briefing in the defendants’ appeal.
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August 21, 2026
NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — The evidence shows that asbestos-talc study authors took steps to ensure their study didn’t include individuals in a previous study or those with other, more traditional asbestos exposures, a federal judge in Virginia said in denying Pecos River Talc LLC’s summary judgment motion on its trade libel claim and granting summary judgment to the authors.
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August 20, 2026
LOS ANGELES — Johnson & Johnson (J&J) and an affiliate told the California judge who oversaw the second bellwether asbestos-talc ovarian cancer trial that the jury heard sufficient evidence about the companies’ testing and marketing efforts to support its findings on negligence and negligence per se claims and that a new trial is not warranted.
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August 19, 2026
RICHMOND, Va. — A Virginia federal judge on Aug. 18 confirmed a plan of reorganization for defunct ship subcontractor and Chapter 11 debtor Hopeman Brothers Inc. that establishes an asbestos personal injury trust that will be funded by nearly $50 million from the company’s insurers and by the debtor’s remaining assets.
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August 19, 2026
MISSOULA, Mont. — BNSF Railway Co. asked a federal judge in Montana for summary judgment in a Libby, Mont., asbestos case or for certification of an interlocutory appeal of the liability questions in the case, while in opposing the motion, the plaintiff claims that courts already decided many of the issues surrounding the company’s conduct in the town and that the motion improperly attempts to relitigate those issues.
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August 19, 2026
RICHMOND, Va. — The Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals should reverse a North Carolina federal bankruptcy court’s denial of relief from the automatic stay in the Chapter 11 case of Georgia-Pacific spinoff Bestwall LLC sought by the executor of the estate of a mesothelioma victim because the debtor’s “Texas Two-Step” bankruptcy was filed in bad faith, the executor says in her opening appellant brief.
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August 18, 2026
EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. — A federal judge in Illinois granted expedited third-party discovery from asbestos trusts in a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) case in the wake of a Delaware Supreme Court ruling allowing the trusts to implement new document retention policies.
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August 18, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court has distributed for its Sept. 28 conference a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by the estates of two mesothelioma victims seeking review of the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ reversal of an $8 million combined judgment for the estates against the railroad company that hauled asbestos-tainted vermiculite from W.R. Grace & Co.’s mine in Libby, Mont.
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August 17, 2026
WILMINGTON, Del. — Former valve maker and current Chapter 11 debtor Valves and Controls US Inc. has asked a Delaware federal bankruptcy judge to give it another month to file an amended plan of liquidation after it had to withdraw its original plan due to a lack of agreement with an asbestos claimants committee on the plan’s proposed asbestos trust.