Word: bhopal
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Compared with the misfortunes of Union Carbide, Job had it easy. The company's problems began nearly a decade ago with a profit slump that has persisted ever since. Then this past December came the leak of methyl isocyanate gas from a plant in Bhopal, India, which killed 2,500 people and provoked more than $100 billion in lawsuits. Last month Union Carbide fell deeper into trouble when a toxic leak in Institute, W. Va., sent 135 people to the hospital and prompted an additional $88 million in suits. Now Union Carbide faces a potential assault by corporate raiders...
...most important questions facing the company has nothing to do with business. It is the location of trials for the lawsuits growing out of the Bhopal disaster. If the cases are heard in the U.S., the company may have to pay at least $2 billion and possibly $6 billion or more in settlements. But if Union Carbide wins its plea to have the trials held in India, where liability payments would be much lower, the cost could be $500 million or less...
During the unseemly scramble among American lawyers to sign up victims of the gas-leak disaster in Bhopal, India, the headlines were studded with the likes of San Francisco's Melvin Belli. But in a Manhattan federal court last week, when the government of India filed what could be the most significant of the Bhopal lawsuits, it was represented by a law firm that had not even sped to the scene. Its name draws a blank among nonlawyers: Robins, Zelle, Larson & Kaplan of Minneapolis. The choice, however, was no surprise to many in the legal profession. In the arcane field...
...Bhopal litigation is expected to dwarf those disputes. Approximately 2,000 people were killed and 200,000 injured by the lethal cloud of methyl- isocyanate gas from a Union Carbide pesticide plant (which the company last week announced will never reopen). "The worst industrial disaster mankind has ever known," charged Robins Zelle's formal complaint. India is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages on behalf of itself, the victims and "future generations of victims...
Union Carbide last week moved to ease public concern over its MIC plant at Institute, W. Va., which was closed down immediately after the Bhopal tragedy. Conducting a press tour of the facility, it showed off the results of a $5 million program to improve safety measures. Some environmentalists were not entirely reassured. Says A. Karim Ahmed, a scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council in New York City: "It remains to be seen whether they learned the lesson of Bhopal...