For more than 135 years, The Babcock & Wilcox Company (B&W) has been supplying innovative solutions to meet the world’s growing energy needs with power generation systems and equipment found in more than 800 utilities and industries in over 90 countries.

B&W used asbestos as insulation in boilers. The use of asbestos was regulated, specified and encouraged by U.S. government agencies for decades, and was utilized in conformance with guidelines published by applicable regulatory bodies. After government regulations imposed low exposure thresholds for asbestos in the early 1970s, asbestos use by B&W was phased out.

On February 22, 2000, B&W and certain of its subsidiaries filed a voluntary petition in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana in New Orleans to reorganize under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. This action offered the only viable legal process by which B&W could determine and comprehensively resolve asbestos liability claims.