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All great. So let me, let me welcome everyone to our first town hall on behalf of the official Committee of TEC claimants, which we sometimes refer to in shorthand as the T C C I thank you for taking the time to join us. We have over 500 people joining us on this webinar today and we are excited to speak with each of you. We wanted to have this town hall because there has been a lot of misinformation circulating in the press about this bankruptcy case and about whether there is a settlement or a proposed plan that pays monies to claimants. We will talk about that later in this town hall. Without question, this bankruptcy case is moving very quickly. It was filed on April four, only six weeks ago. A lot is happening in this case and we will try to use this and future town halls to keep you up to speed and explain what is going on.
1:16
Today’s town hall will focus on a few key items, the background of this case, what happened in the first case, which was dismissed only two hours and 11 minutes before this second case was filed and what is happening in the next few weeks. We encourage you to submit your questions through the q and a function on today’s zoom or send them by email to [email protected]. I repeat questions at tec, excuse me, [email protected]. We also have a webpage and encourage you to look at it. The webpage is updated regularly. The webpage is found, and I’ll say this twice, LT ltel committee.org, LTL te committee.org, a schedule for our upcoming town halls and the bankruptcy case schedule is posted and updated regularly at this website, namely te ltl tec committee.org. So let me introduce our 11 member TEC claimants committee who you will meet over the course of our town halls.
2:41
10 of the committee members are either suffering from ovarian cancer or mesothelioma, or they have family members who sadly suffered and died from these diseases. The 11th member is Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts. The 10 members are in alphabetical order. Brandy Carl, Patricia Cook, Randy <unk>, Christie Doyle as the estate representative of Dan Doyle, April Fair, William Henry as the estate representative of Deborah Henry. Alicia Landrum, Rebecca Love Sue Summer CREs. Tony Wetzel as the estate representative of Brandon Wetzel and as I noted Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts. Many of the T C C members, if not all, are watching this town hall today. The speakers on today’s town hall are myself, which I’m Melanie Sedowski from Ottenberg. I am a retired bankruptcy judge and one of the co-counsel representing the committee along with David Molten and the team from Brad Redick who will be speaking shortly. Also speaking today is Lisa Nathanson Bush from Whites and Luxembourg who represents Patricia Cook, Leo O’Dell from Beasley Allen, who represents Alicia Landrum and Michelle Parit from Ashcraft and Terrell, who represents Rebecca Love.
4:25
The T C C was appointed by the office of the United States trustee. The committee is the the official committee specially appointed under the bankruptcy code and is the fiduciary which represents alltel claimants under the bankruptcy code. The committee has a duty to communicate with all of the creditors and claimants in the L T L bankruptcy case. Before I turn the microphone over to David Multon, let me remind you that we are not your lawyers and we are not here to give you legal advice. We understand that many of you do have counsel and for those of you who identified your counsel when you signed up for this town hall, we reached out to them to specially invite them to attend. We are at an early point in this case when only the debtor L T L has the right to propose a plan of reorganization. That is the plan that we will be referring to. The debtor filed its proposed plan just before midnight on May 15th, and it consists of hundreds of pages. This is not a solicitation for or against the debtor’s proposed plan. This town hall is being recorded and will be posted on our committee’s webpage. Let me now turn the microphone over to David Multon who will give you additional information about the case. David,
5:55
Thank. Thank you, Melanie. We appreciate everybody’s attention. I appreciate everybody being here. We hope this is the beginning of a good liaison of communication between the official committee, as Melanie said, and the top claimants, which are you out there? I’ve got a little bit of a cold that I developed yesterday, so excuse me if I sound that way, but I’m gonna run through some points that I think it’s important for all of you to hear to better understand where we are today. Let us share some critical background of where we came from. L T L is a j and j, Johnson and Johnson subsidiary that was created for the sole purpose of managing its TC liabilities. The Ann Akram L T L stands for Legacy TEC Litigation Management within days of LT L’S formation way back in October, 2021, LTL filed for bankruptcy. The original bankruptcy, which you’ll hear us refer to today, and hence fourth as LTL 1.0 lasted for over a year and a half from October, 2021 to early April, 2023.
7:21
Members of the TCC and its dedicated professional spent months back in that ba, the first bankruptcy LTL 1.0, arguing that the bankruptcy was not filed in good faith and should be thrown out. On January 30th, 2023, the TCCs arguments and efforts were successful. The third Circuit United States Court of Appeals, one of the dozen or so federal Court of Appeals that sits underneath directly underneath the Supreme Court in the United States overruled the bankruptcy court and found that LTL one. That case was filed in bad faith and was an impermissible use of the bankruptcy process and the third circuit court of appeals directed that the case be dismissed on April 4th, 2023. The bankruptcy court did just that. It dismissed the case in accordance with the instructions given to it by the Third Circuit United States Court of Appeals two hours and 11 minutes later, I’m gonna say that again. Two hours and 11 minutes later, L T L came back to SAT bankruptcy court in New Jersey with a second bankruptcy petition starting a new case having been out of bankruptcy for only, and I’ll say it a third time, two hours and 11 minutes.
8:58
We refer to the new case and you’ll be hearing it as LTL 2.0. In LTL 1.0, the first bankruptcy j j Johnson and Johnson agreed to initially fund 2 billion, 2 billion in in funds to satisfy the claims of victims of mesothelioma and ovarian cancer under a funding agreement that existed. In connection with that case, j and j was obligated to fund up to 61 billion to satisfy its T liabilities. In this new case, j and j has agreed to fund 8.9 billion, which is to be divided among numerous categories of T claimants. In addition to ovarian cancer and mesothelioma victims. The funds would also be shared with victims of non GY gynecological cancers as well as with state attorneys, general insurance companies who paid the medical expenses of talk victims and other in unsecured creditors. Having said that, in a hopefully a short period of time, I’m now going to turn it over to Michelle Parit
10:21
Today to all of you. It’s a pleasure to be here and speak with you. So what are we doing about this Most recent bankruptcy that’s been filed once again by L T ltl, while on April 24th, 2023, the tcc, the Tout claimant’s committee filed a its second motion to dismiss the now LTL 2.0. Chapter 11 case. We argued that LTL is not in financial distress and that the new bankruptcy case was not filed in good faith. Now we’re not alone in this effort in trying to get the LTL 2.0 case dismissed. In addition to the support from this tcc, there have been several other groups who have stood forward and filed their own briefing with regard to their opposition of this plan and this bankruptcy. It includes the Office of US trustee, numerous states, attorney generals across the country and other plaintiff groups who also want this case dismissed.
11:27
In total, there are currently about nine separate motions to dismiss requesting that this bad faith bankruptcy be thrown out. Now at the start of the new bankruptcy from Hack on April 4th, L T L counted support of a proposed plan term sheet, but publicly provided very few details and analysis regarding what these terms and what this proposed plan might look like, the identity of the creditors and those individuals who were alleged to actually support the plan. At 11 o’clock this past Monday evening, L T L filed its proposed plan and its disclosure statement describing its proposed terms to resolve allt for all time allt liability. These filings are hundreds of pages long due to the fact that the plan was just filed this past Monday evening. The committee and others are, and lawyers and your representatives are out here trying to analyze and get a better understanding of what the plan says and what the plan doesn’t say, and we look forward in future town halls to discussing with you what these terms are and what the plan says and what the plan provides and what it does not. At this point, I’ll turn it over to Leo Dell who’s gonna explain a little bit more about the concerns the TCC has with regard to this bankruptcy plan. Thank you.
13:06
Thank you, Michelle. Good afternoon everyone. The pleasure to be here. As stated in the pleadings and before the court numerous times, the TCC is concerned by J j’s use of bankruptcy to propose a plan that does not treat victims of cancer meso and ovarian cancer by the use of J j’s TC products, both fairly and equitably. That is our goal fairly and equitably. But isn’t there a settlement? You may have heard that you may have read things in the media and what’s really happening. This isn’t a settlement, it is a proposed bankruptcy plan. The bankruptcy code has specific timetables and procedures before any plan can be approved. As a result, we are many months away from the time when tout claimants have the right and opportunity to vote on any plan. As you just heard, there are nine separate parties who are fighting to have this case dismissed by the bankruptcy court.
14:12
Those same parties are likely very likely to object vociferously to the debtor’s proposed plan. Who ultimately is going to get the money and how will it be divided among top victims. You may have asked yourself that question. Second, there’s been much press about the very large sum of money being paid by Johnson Johnson or ltl. While 8.9 billion sounds like a lot of money and certainly it is, there are a lot of parties who would expect to receive compensation from that amount of money. We do not know the amount of money that each group of claimants would be entitled to receive under the the proposed plan. We know it is intended to provide funding for all calc liability, including mesothelioma victims, individuals diagnosed with variant ovarian cancer and those suffering from other gynecologic cancers. This fund is also intended to provide funding for claims of all attorneys general of the United States.
15:20
It’s also intended to provide funding for tout claimants, not only in the US but also in Canada. This plan also covers not only present ovarian cancer and mesothelioma victims, but also future ovarian cancer and mesothelioma claimants who may have potential claims against Johnson and Johnson. In the future, the health insurance companies who have been paying medical expenses and bills on behalf of victims or claimants known as subrogation creditors would also receive funding from this total amount of money. After the pot of money is shared among all these claimants, we do not know how much individual claimants would actually receive and you might ask the question, when will funds be available? Some of the press articles are reporting that claimants will be paid by the end of this calendar year. This is not true. The proposed plan states that no funds will be paid until there is a not final non appealable order. It may take several months or even years before there is a final non-apple order.
16:43
You may have heard that 60,000 claimants support this plan at the outset of LTL 2.0. LTL reported that the PO proposed plan term sheet had the support of approximately 60,000 child victims. However, in court just this past week, we learned that it was certain law firms that have stated their support for the proposed plan terms, not the claimants themselves. Let me say that again. We learned that it was certain law firms that have stated their support for the proposed plan terms, not the claimants themselves, but these law firms indicated in court just yesterday that they have issues with the proposed plan. So now I’ll turn it over to Lisa.
17:40
Thank you Lee. I appreciate it. Nice. Good afternoon to everybody who’s listening in. I think there’s been a lot of questions here with regard to where are we today with re in in litigation. Can you sue Johnson Johnson in the court system? And the answer is yes. You can file a complaint, you can do discovery, you can take depositions in the state court system. Everything is going forward. Not in the mdl though everything is stayed there against Johnson and Johnson as well as the debtor and all other affiliates. But in state court everybody can pursue their case against Johnson and Johnson, not the debtor. And it’s important to understand that you can do that without going to trial. The judge has not allowed trials except for one to move forward to verdict. There is only one case that’s out in California that is moving forward as we speak and you know, we’re we’re hoping for a good result there.
18:42
The court may extend this, we’ll call it in an injunction. It’s a stay. They’re staying all litigation against Johnson and Johnson. As I said in the M D L right now, the stay can be lifted as of June 15th according to the judge’s ruling. However, and in my experience in many bankruptcies this is likely to get extended. We’re hopeful that it’s not, but it may get extended past June 15th. What is the T C C, the Torque Claimant Committee doing about lifting this day? We have filed a number of actions, a number of motions, and we are doing whatever we can to fight back against this injunction and to allow TA Vic victims to seek justice in the court system as you all deserve. It was discussed earlier that we, the T C C as well as I think nine other entities have filed a motion to dismiss this bankruptcy.
19:37
The T C C believes that this was filed, this bankruptcy was filed in bad faith as the third Circuit has already ruled back in January for LTL one. But since this is a new bankruptcy, it’s LTL two. We are going to move forward and do what we did there and we are going to bring action at the end of June, we hope against L T, L and J and J and try and get this case dismissed as well. We also filed a motion for authority to bring certain other claims and lawsuits against L T L J and J and its officers and its directors. For example, you may have seen articles describing the largest fraudulent conveyance in US history. In its motion, the t CCC is seeking authority to sue j and j because we believe it changed the terms of its obligation to fund L T L, to pay the T claims in a way that the T C C believes violates the bankruptcy code and may be harmful to the tau claimants.
20:40
As stated before, the original value of the funding agreement was 60 billion. Now the funding agreement is 30 to 40 billion in order to fund and have a backstop to pay these TA claimants all of you that are listening in today. So what is gonna happen now, there’s a multi-day hearing that’s scheduled at the end of June where the committee and other parties are going to litigate the motion to dismissed. Depending on how the judge rules, that will give us additional clarity on the path forward. It could be where we are appealing this case if, if it is not dismissed or the debtor LTL may be appealing this case. If it is, the TCC is committed to providing you timely and relevant updates as we have already stated. But I wanna remind you that you have a number of resources available to you. Of course, your first resource can be contacting your own personal counsel. You can visit the committee’s website, which is up on the screen right now, and you can also access the court’s document docket. You can see any of the doc, the documents that have been filed by all of the parties, in this case, the T C C, the debtors, as well as the United States trustee and many other parties who have intervened here to be heard on the motion to dismiss. But at this time, I think that we will send it back to you, Melanie, to kind of give your closing remarks
22:08
As, as we stated during this program, it’s our intention to have these town halls every two weeks. We look forward to sharing this time with you. Please continue to send us your questions. We received several in the q and a box during today’s session and we will use the intervening time between now and the next town hall to, to answer them. Thank you all very much. Thank you everyone.
22:43
Thank you.
22:44
Be all soon. Thank you.