An offer worth billions
US company Johnson & Johnson has offered to pay $6.475 billion in response to thousands of lawsuits alleging that its brand of baby powder contains carcinogenic additives that may cause ovarian cancer.
Foreign media reports that the company announced this offer on Wednesday, May 1, stating that it plans to pay the specified amount over the next 25 years.
It is stated that this would settle 99.75% of all claims related to ovarian cancer complaints. The company said lawyers representing most of the victims support the proposal.
The deal is still subject to the consent of the claimants. The review of this proposal will take place in the next three months, and for the transaction to be approved, 75% of the group members must vote for it. If the 75% threshold is reached, further lawsuits will be prevented and consumers will not be able to file individual claims.
After that, “Johnson & Johnson” will try to end the lawsuits by filing for bankruptcy of the subsidiary “LTL Management”, according to CNN.
LTL Management was formed to assume the company’s liability for the case, CNBC reports. The US Court of Appeals rejected LTL’s first bankruptcy filing filed by LTL in January 2023. A second bankruptcy filing, in which LTL agreed to pay an $8.9 billion settlement to resolve the court dispute, was dismissed a few months later in July 2023.
