company

Johnson and Johnson bankruptcy claim is a ruse to limit liability, cancer victims say

Juliet Gray has felt many things since she was first diagnosed with peritoneal mesothelioma two years ago.

Pain, which flares up when she’s stressed or tired. Fear, with every new doctor’s visit as she dreads the return of her rare, terminal cancer. Heartache, when she thinks of her 9-year-old son and how quickly her time with him is running out.

Mostly, though, she’s mad. She’s furious with New Jersey-based pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson, whose talc products she blames for her incurable cancer. And her fury recently curdled into betrayal after Johnson & Johnson filed for bankruptcy in a controversial strategy company attorneys say will expedite the nearly 40,000 lawsuits against them.

Critics say the company — worth over $400 billion — is far from bankrupt and instead just wants to keep their cases from being heard by juries. Maryland-based attorney Jonathan Ruckdeschel, who has filed several lawsuits against J&J, said such a strategy forces plaintiffs into a collectively negotiated, judicially enforced settlement and removes their Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial.

“What they’re trying to do is cram everybody into a one-size-fits-all mandatory settlement that nobody has the choice to opt in or out of, and if you

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July 13, 2023 by ATTORNEY

Vantage files for bankruptcy, Singapore travel company to purchase its assets

“Vantage has sought customary relief from the court to preserve the status quo pending completion of the sale,” said the statement released by the law firm Casner & Edwards LLP.

“Vantage has sought approval to complete the sale promptly, subject to any higher and better offers that may be submitted through the court supervised sale process,” the statement said.

Vantage, founded by Hank Lewis, has been a travel mainstay in Boston for 40 years. In recent years, it has come under fierce and sustained criticism from customers for years-long delays in refunds for canceled trips, some dating back to the beginning of the pandemic.

In April, Vantage customers began publicly complaining about last-minute cancellations of long-planned — and paid for — trips.

Last week, the company laid off an unspecified number of employees, weeks after the company said it was negotiating a sale, according to interviews with multiple laid-off employees and a copy of an internal e-mail.

The statement did not address what the bankruptcy filing and sale of its assets would mean for customers who are owed refunds for canceled trips, and company officials did not immediately respond to a request for comments.

Vantage could owe customers

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July 5, 2023 by ATTORNEY

FTX Bankruptcy Lawyers Say Independent Examiner Would Put Assets at Risk

The judge overseeing the FTX bankruptcy proceeding still hasn’t decided whether he will appoint an independent examiner after a 4-hour hearing that included testimony from FTX CEO John Ray III.

Judge John Doresey, who’s overseeing the bankruptcy proceedings, said Monday he’s asked the attorneys representing FTX, the unsecured creditor committee, U.S. Trustee and the Joint Public Liquidators of the Bahamas to discuss “a consensual resolution.” The next FTX court hearing is scheduled for Wednesday, but there’s no sign yet the judge will make a ruling then.

Ray was appointed when crypto exchange FTX filed for bankruptcy and founder Sam Bankman-Fried stepped down on November 11. The company, once an influential giant in the industry, is accused of having commingled client funds with those of its sister company, Alameda Research—a crypto trading firm also founded by Bankman-Fried.

Ray said during his testimony on Monday that he and his team have been fielding daily requests from state and federal investigators. Ray also testified that he did not find examiner’s reports helpful in two prior bankruptcies he’s overseen, Enron and Residential Capital, adding that “the reports were somewhat ambivalent in the conclusionary sense.”

The FTX legal team has been arguing that the cost

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February 13, 2023 by ATTORNEY

Lawyers for Genesis and Its Creditors Are ‘Optimistic’ for a Quick Resolution to Bankruptcy Woes

Lawyers for Genesis Global told a federal bankruptcy court in New York City on Monday that they’ve been working with creditors’ representatives and the U.S. Trustee’s Office “around the clock” for the past two months in order to reach a “consensual resolution” with the embattled company’s creditors.

Genesis’ lending arm halted withdrawals on Nov. 18, 2022, after what its lawyers described as “a run on the bank” in the wake of FTX’s collapse earlier that month. Two months later, on Jan. 19, Genesis Global Holdco – the holding company of Genesis Global Capital – and two of its subsidiaries, Genesis Asia Pacific (GAP) and Genesis Global Capital (GGC), global-files-for-bankruptcy-protection/” data-ylk=”slk:filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection” class=”link “filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in New York.

Genesis’ lawyers – from the New York-based law firm Cleary Gottleib – told bankruptcy court Judge Sean H. Lane at a hearing on Monday they expect to reach an agreement with the creditors by the end of the week.

“We have a timeline and an approach to get through this case as quickly as possible,” Genesis attorney Sean O’Neal told the judge. “We really want to avoid getting involved in a prolonged

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January 25, 2023 by ATTORNEY

Lawyers Detail the ‘Abrupt and Difficult’ Collapse of FTX in First Bankruptcy Hearing

“You have witnessed probably one of the most abrupt and difficult collapses in the history of corporate America,” an attorney for FTX said during the company’s first bankruptcy hearing in Delaware on Tuesday.

James Bromley of Sullivan and Cromwell, representing FTX, detailed the company’s rise and collapse in a brief presentation during the hearing, explaining how the company fell apart within the course of two weeks after bankman-frieds-crypto-empire-blur-on-his-trading-titan-alamedas-balance-sheet/” data-ylk=”slk:a CoinDesk report” class=”link “a CoinDesk report showed that Alameda Research, a subsidiary of the overall FTX group, held an unexpectedly large amount of FTT tokens, issued by FTX itself.

There are over 100 different debtors tied to the FTX group that filed for bankruptcy, another attorney said.

Bromley called the case an “unprecedented matter,” tacitly acknowledging the chaos of FTX’s bankruptcy, which saw a hack the night it filed for bankruptcy and several days before typical first-day filings were available.

The new team at FTX, including new CEO John Ray III, has “assembled a team of investigators,” which includes former enforcement officials with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Commodity Futures Trading Commission and former prosecutors, Bromley said. FTX has also retained crypto analytics firm Chainalysis to help it investigate

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November 26, 2022 by ATTORNEY
December 2024
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