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[January 2005]
Refractories Group Receives US$10 Million from Halliburton Subsidiary
RHI AG (Vienna, Austria) and the Halliburton subsidiary DII Industries agreed in April 2004 to settle their legal disputes about an agreement made in 2002 regarding further payments in the context of the Chapter 11 proceedings of Harbison-Walker. In December 2003, DII initiated its own Chapter 11 proceedings in accordance with the UK Bankruptcy Code and presented a plan of reorganisation which, among other things, provided for the establishment of trust funds for asbestos and silica-based claims against RHI's former US subsidiary Harbison-Walker and permanent channelling injunctions in accordance with Sections 524(g) and/or 105 of the US Bankruptcy Code with respect to such claims.
Following the agreements of April 2004, the DII plan of reorganisation was amended with the objective to make RHI and its affiliates beneficiaries of the channelling injunctions contemplated by the DII plan of reorganisation. DII also committed to pay US$10 million to RHI and, on behalf of the RHI affiliates, US$1 million to the asbestos and silica trusts.
It was announced on 24 January 2005 that, in the course of the successful completion of its Chapter 11 proceedings, DII had paid US$10 million to RHI in accordance with its contractual obligations. RHI has thus taken another essential step towards ending the asbestos problems in the US as all present and future asbestos and silica-based claims against Harbison-Walker - which is currently still operating under Chapter 11 - are diverted to the DII trust funds definitively and with legal security.
All other asbestos claims against other former US companies of RHI are dealt with within the framework of the separate Chapter 11 proceedings of these companies, which have not been consolidated in the RHI Group since the end of 2001.
ENDS