Georgia-Pacific, owned by Koch Industries, employ controversial legal tactic to circumvent paying millions to sickened workers

Georgia-Pacific, owned by Koch Industries, employ controversial legal tactic to circumvent paying millions to sickened workers

Asbestos victims, their families and attorneys are claiming a Koch Industries-owned company and its lawyers are using a controversial bankruptcy maneuver to avoid paying millions in compensation to its former employees.

Workers at Georgia-Pacific, a paper and building products company, have been locked in a years-long battle with a company over claims asbestos in its products caused fatal cancers.

The case has come as the Koch brothers’ political network has pushed for legislation to protect companies facing asbestos-related claims and limit payouts for victims.

Koch Industries bought Georgia-Pacific in 2005. The company faces over 60,000 asbestos lawsuits but has not paid out anything since 2017 when the company conducted a controversial maneuver known as the “Texas two-step”.

  • ceenote@lemmy.world
    82·
    10 months ago

    Since the summary stops just short of explaining what they’re doing: They’re creating an LLC (in Texas) that will assume liability for all the damages, but has no assets of its own and exists only to declare bankruptcy so as to avoid paying. It’s a loophole that obviously was deliberately created to be used in exactly this way.

      • godzillabacter@lemmy.worldEnglish
        39·
        10 months ago

        It’s so funny because it is criminal activity for regular non-corporation people. Transferring assets to family/hiding assets for the purposes of declaring bankruptcy but not losing the assets is illegal. Functionally identical to what is going on here, except they’re somehow transferring the liability instead of the assets.

    • noride@lemm.ee
      24·
      10 months ago

      Same thing DuPont did to try a shuck PFAS liability onto newly created Chemours chemical company.

        • albert180@feddit.de
          8·
          10 months ago

          Maybe it’s about maintaining the image of being the biggest assholes inside of the United States at this point

    • hglmanEnglish
      12·
      10 months ago

      If it works, civil suits are dead.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
    20·
    10 months ago

    You know who else just loves asbestos?

    https://whyy.org/articles/trump-wants-to-make-asbestos-great-again/

    Well, for starters, he loves asbestos. In one of his ghostwritten books, he lauds asbestos as “incredible fire-proofing material” and “the greatest fireproofing material ever made” and a “heavyweight champion.” He didn’t like the decision, by construction officials at the World Trade Center, to halt the use of asbestos in 1971 after 400 tons had been installed. Four years after the towers fell on 9/11, Trump told Congress: “A lot of people say that if the World Trade Center had asbestos it wouldn’t have burned down, it wouldn’t have melted, OK?” (“A lot of people” turned out to be junk scientists. The credible consensus is that the towers would have fallen anyway. The 400 tons of asbestos from the building was spewed into the air – and still imperils the health of people who cleaned up at Ground Zero. One health study says: “Malignant mesothelioma resulting from exposure to asbestos, for example, may not become evident for 30-50 years.”)

      • pandapoo@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        10·
        10 months ago

        Not really. He died having won all his battles.

        If he died at hands of some rough trade gone wrong, that would feel good.

        If he died because one of these cancer striken plant workers had killed him, that would have felt better

        But no, he died after helping reshape America in his disgusting image, so no, it doesn’t feel like a win because he died on his own terms.

        • Xhieron@lemmy.worldEnglish
          32·
          10 months ago

          Well, if you’re a materialist, he no longer exists in any way, and we can all rejoice for having outlived him.

          And if you’re religious at all, then perhaps there is some cosmic justice for him, and the scales may someday balance.

          Either way he’s dead, and while I can’t bring myself to celebrate the death of any man, there’s no denying the world may well be a better place without him.

  • thefartographer@lemm.ee
    11·
    10 months ago

    I love pissing on a grave just as much as the next guy, but allowing anyone to convince you that the Koch “brothers” are to blame might accidentally distract you from the fact that the Koch name is so powerful and evil that even in death, David Koch has more political weight than you’ll ever have. We’re the power that runs the American machine, yet dead people money is more powerful than us.

    Remember: half of the Koch brothers is dead and nothing will get better when the other half dies unless you include the assholes who are more willing to help rich dead people than the starving masses. Eat the rich and fuck their corrupt political counterparts.

    • Illuminostro@lemmy.world
      10·
      10 months ago

      The remaining brother is throwing metric fucktons of money at right wing lobbyists, politicians, colleges, and YouTube right wing grifters who brainwash young white men to their ideology. His poison will live long after he’s dead.

  • ReallyKinda@kbin.social
    10·
    10 months ago

    The Koch brothers funded a ‘policy institute’ at a public college to help train the next generation of asbestos advocates.