When Children and Parents Fight

Asarco's bankruptcy reorganization is moving along nicely.  (I don't have a link to the pleadings, but here's a background link on the company here -- one of our delightfully nerdy and more internet-savvy followers should feel free to post them.)

What makes this case curious?  Apart from being an asbestos one (requiring approval by the D. Ct.), it's one where two rival, but confirmable plans were submitted, requiring the B. Ct. to make a choice (I guess "recommendation" to D. Ct.).  Here's the kicker: the rival plans are from the debtor (no surprise) and the debtor's corporate parent, Grupo Mexico!  The debtor wanted to sell to a company called Vedanta Resources, but Grupo Mexico wants, basically, to buy back its own sub (there'll be a cash injection).  Apparently the debtor's stakeholders (unions, etc.) wanted the debtor's plan, but the judge said no, the cash-in-hand under the parent's plan is better for creditors and the company itself.  Great case for seeing that bankruptcy judges do get independently involved in business cases and don't just roll over to DIP.

Comments

[Patches]

How about Grandparents?

Ya, that's our Judge. Richard Schmidt. He has always seemed to do his own thing. Great Musician btw and seems to be very fair. I guess I am a bit partial.

Whatever the heck they are doing (I think uploading the plan or something) is slowing down PACER. They consolidated quite a few different BKs into the 05 case. Some big wig representing the debtor whom I hear is from Mexico rented 3 meeting rooms at one of our bay front hotels along with like 15 rooms (something like that). We got a little ASARCO work like 2 years ago out of the East and West Coasts.

My grandfather actually worked for the local factory owned by ASARCO. He worked there for like 30+ years. He would tell us stories about lining pipes with liquid Asbestos with just a rubber glove. He had a ton of scarring in his lungs and was a party to that class. There were (I think) concerns of Mercury (or lead or both) releases into our bay like 20 years ago (as the factory, now closed for some time sits right on our port that supplies oil refineries (by my grandmas' house).

It would be great to finally get them off of the docket. As I scrolled through the docket entries a couple of years ago I seem to remember a lot of environmental stuff besides Asbestos. I still don't know why they consolidated it here in CC? But good riddance because its taking me 15 min. to pull a case history on our cases!

It seems that we have not learned our lesson! They want to put a pet coke power plant around there now with the bribe of millions and millions of tax dollars and jobs. :(