> Through some bizarre global settlement deal, Halliburton is bankrupting
> a portion of KBR. That portion is taking down with it all the asbestos
> lawsuits (over 300,000 of them) that Cheney bought in 1998 when as CEO
> of Halliburton he took over Dresser. Those liabilities will be capped at
> $2.8bln. The rest of KBR, the part where all the government monies get
> booked, will remain intact.
>
> I can't think of any similar corporate situation.
You've mentioned this several times, Nomi, and I've never read about it anywhere else. If I understand it all correctly, it seems like a huge sea change. I thought filing bankruptcy in an attempt to escape asbestos claims was always an all or nothing deal, which is why many companies declined to follow John Manville 20 years ago. But there was a new wave of filings a couple of years ago by Babcock & Wilcox, Owens Corning and WR Grace. If these companies had the option of just sinking their abestos-laden subsidiary the way you say Halliburton is doing with Dresser, wouldn't they have done it? Has something crucial happened to make possible now what was never legally possible before? And if Halliburton gets away with this, won't every company do it for every kind of large scale liability?
Michael