Sources: Asbestos Fund Bill Now Dead
By Steven Brostoff, Washington Editor
NU Online News Service, May 7, 12:20 p.m. EDT,Washington?Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., is expected to announce today that negotiations aimed at reaching a consensus on asbestos litigation reform legislation have been terminated without an agreement.[@@]
Sources told National Underwriter that the announcement will say that while all parties to the negotiations?including defendants, insurers and labor unions?did their best to reach an agreement, the differences were too great to be bridged.
The groups had been meeting with a mediator, Judge Edward Becker, who sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, in hopes of reaching a compromise.
The expected announcement will likely end all chance for asbestos reform legislation in the 108th Congress.
The primary difference between the parties was the size of a trust fund that was to be used to resolve asbestos-related claims out of court.
Defendants and insurers agreed to a $114 billion fund, along with a $10 billion contingency. Insurers' contributions would have been capped at $46 billion.
However, labor unions said that the fund should have at least $154 billion in funding.
In addition to the size of the fund, several issues involving insurers remained unresolved. These include the allocation formula that would be used to determine individual company's shares of the $46 billion industry funding and how to collect money from foreign reinsurers.
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