STORY: Johnson & Johnson may have cleared a major hurdle for its $6.5 billion settlement
over lawsuits related to its baby powder and other items with talc.
The lawsuits allege that those products cause cancer.
According to a report from Bloomberg on Monday, over 75% of claimants support the proposed settlement,
meeting J&J’s requirement for its third attempt to use bankruptcy protection to settle the lawsuits.
Company spokesperson Clare Boyle said they could not comment because the vote count isn’t final.
J&J has previously said it was confident that their settlement proposal will get enough support to move forward.
In total the company is being sued by around 61,000 people who claim
its talc products caused cancer due to asbestos contamination.
The company denies these allegations and says its products are safe.
The company has been engaged in a bitter fight with lawyers who oppose its latest attempt to end the litigation.
The first two tries failed in federal courts.
J&J is again attempting a so-called ‘Texas two-step’ strategy by offloading
the talc liability onto a newly-created subsidiary which then files for Chapter 11.
That would allow J&J itself to avoid filing for bankruptcy.
The US Congress has proposed legislation that would limit the ability of
companies to shield themselves from lawsuits by putting a shell company into bankruptcy.
