As suits mount, J&J spins out talc li­a­bil­i­ties in­to Chap­ter 11 us­ing 'Texas two-step' ma­neu­ver

With law­suits pil­ing up al­leg­ing its talc ba­by pow­der prod­ucts are un­safe, J&J has tak­en the con­tro­ver­sial step of spin­ning out its re­lat­ed li­a­bil­i­ties in­to a new com­pa­ny and fil­ing for Chap­ter 11 bank­rupt­cy, ac­cord­ing to court pa­pers filed late Thurs­day.

The pro­ce­dures will now head to bank­rupt­cy court in North Car­oli­na, halt­ing all law­suits and their re­spec­tive dis­cov­ery process­es. It’s a move that comes a few months af­ter the Wall Street Jour­nal and Reuters both re­port­ed J&J was ex­plor­ing this op­tion, and af­ter a fed­er­al judge said the process could move for­ward in Au­gust.

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