Judge strikes down J&J talc unit’s second bankruptcy attempt over lack of ‘financial distress’

A New Jer­sey judge squashed a sec­ond bank­rupt­cy at­tempt by John­son & John­son’s talc busi­ness Fri­day but did not pre­clude the com­pa­ny from mak­ing ad­di­tion­al fil­ings over the next six months.

Faced with mount­ing law­suits al­leg­ing its talc prod­ucts caused can­cer, J&J con­tro­ver­sial­ly spun its talc li­a­bil­i­ties in­to a sep­a­rate com­pa­ny called LTL Man­age­ment, which filed for bank­rupt­cy in 2021. The move, known col­lo­qui­al­ly as a “Texas two-step” bank­rupt­cy, was shot down ear­li­er this year, prompt­ing LTL to file for bank­rupt­cy a sec­ond time in April.

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