Johnson & Johnson has engaged law firm Jones Day to advise the company as it explores placing a subsidiary in bankruptcy to help settle thousands of personal injury claims linking talcum-based baby powder to cancer, people familiar with the matter said.
Jones Day has been advising J&J on options for addressing talc-related claims, including a possible bankruptcy filing by a subsidiary containing those legal liabilities, the people said. The company has told personal-injury lawyers during settlement discussions that such a bankruptcy filing was under consideration, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.
J&J said Tuesday it hasn’t decided on a course of action with respect to the thousands of talc lawsuits it faces, except to defend the safety of talc and fight pending claims. The company declined to comment further. Jones Day didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Filing a subsidiary for bankruptcy would give J&J several legal tools to resolve current liabilities and future claims over talc-based products, which the company stopped selling in the U.S. and Canada last year.
J&J faced 28,900 injury lawsuits across the U.S. over talc as of April, according to the company’s most recent quarterly report, which also said the number of tort claims continues to grow.
