An agreement to create a privately financed US$100-billion trust to diminish the flood of asbestos lawsuits clogging up the U.S. court system is gaining momentum south of the border.
The trust would ensure that tens of thousands of people who will die over the next 30 years as a result of exposure to asbestos, as well as many others who were made ill by exposure, receive compensation.
More than 200,000 asbestos-related lawsuits have been launched in the U.S. over the past two years, in addition to about 500,000 filed before that. This has had a crippling effect on the U.S. court system.
The trust would be subject to approval by the U.S. Congress and President George W. Bush.
If a settlement is reached, it would be the second-largest lawsuit settlement ever, surpassed only by the US$246 billion paid by tobacco companies to certain states in 1998 for their Medicaid spending on victims of cigarette smoking.
Under the proposed settlement, victims would not be allowed to opt out and sue, and the trust would be funded almost entirely by businesses and insurance companies. No one knows the exact size of payments victims will be issued or what would happen if the trust were to run out of money.
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