Founded in 1899, ASARCO (American Smelting and Refining Company) began as a group of lead and silver smelting companies that made its name in the mining industry.
Until the Great Depression, ASARCO was one of the largest refineries in the world. The company found 50 years of success and business acquisitions before beginning to mine copper and other metals.
Though asbestos is not a metal, it was a widely-used industrial mineral. ASARCO’s purchase of an asbestos field in Canada in 1952 ensured the most notorious material it mined was raw asbestos.
In 1974, the company took ownership of an asbestos cement pipe manufacturer, CAPCO (Cement Asbestos Products Co.), for 20 years until it was sold in 1994.
CAPCO began producing asbestos-containing cement pipe products around the mid-1960s. A well known brand name was Permaflex.
In the 1980s, CAPCO began to see the first of the asbestos injury claims brought against it. Eventually, an increasing number of personal injury lawsuits caused financial distress for the company.
In 2005, it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas; the petition included roughly 20 of the company’s subsidiaries.
In 2009, the ASARCO Asbestos Personal Injury Settlement Trust was created under the ASARCO Chapter 11 Joint Plan of Reorganization. It was funded with over $900 million to start.
More than 8,000 claims have been paid by the trust since it was established. In 2021, 15,781 unliquidated claims were filed with the Trust, according to its annual financial report.
The report also details that $51,574,848 was paid out in claims in 2021, adding to the total of $513,758,541 the Trust has paid since it was established. The current payment percentage is 35%.
We’ve helped thousands of people receive the compensation they deserve for their asbestos injuries. Let us help you. You can contact asbestos attorney Justinian C. Lane at Asbestos Claims Law via his website at https://www.AsbestosClaims.law.
Email directly at help@asbestosclaims.law.
Or call anytime at (833) 4-ASBESTOS (427-2378).
