In 2017, Georgia-Pacific invented a legal scheme to skirt liability for serious consumer harms. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court allowed the move to stay in place, giving the company more time to avoid paying up for its asbestos poisoning.
In 2017, Georgia-Pacific invented the so-called Texas two-step, a legal scheme to skirt liability for consumer harms like widespread asbestos exposures or the opioid crisis. That year the company quietly reincorporated itself in Texas and used a Texas law to split itself into two entities. One, the new Georgia-Pacific, received almost all of the company’s assets and carried on business as usual as a multibillion-dollar company.
The other company — Bestwall, LLC — was saddled with all of Georgia-Pacific’s asbestos liabilities, which included tens of thousands of legal claims from people who lost loved ones to deadly asbestos-related cancers like mesothelioma, and people who were sick themselves. Bestwall then promptly filed for bankruptcy, trapping these legal claims in bankruptcy court.
This is now used by other companies, too, according to the article
Key takeaway, I would say:
This is now used by other companies, too, according to the article