Quigley tort victims claim Pfizer plotted to buy plan votes

By Caroline Salls

Pittsburgh, Sept. 4 - Quigley Co., Inc.'s informal committee of tort victims objected to the company's fourth amended and restated plan of reorganization, calling the plan "the culmination of an illegal plot to buy enough votes, on the cheap, to permit this multi-billion dollar enterprise to avoid its responsibilities to thousands of sick and dying victims."

"After more than four full years in a Chapter 11 proceeding that Pfizer deceitfully represented would last no more than six months, the time finally has come to put a stop to this massive, fraudulent undertaking," the tort victims group said in the objection.

According to the objection, Quigley parent Pfizer Inc. developed a bankruptcy strategy "built upon its defunct subsidiary," that would allow it to end its asbestos-related debt "for pennies on the dollar."

The committee said more than half of all the yes votes "proffered by Pfizer in its illegal proposed plan were literally purchased from law firms that Pfizer historically (and safely) ignored because of their known lack of medical and product identification evidence."

"Most of the rest of the purchased yes votes came from firms that historically were able to achieve only very modest settlements for their questionable inventory," the committee said in the objection.

In addition, the committee said Pfizer conditioned the receipt of half of the total asbestos claim settlement dollars on an accepting vote on Quigley's plan because the parent needed "to ensure that its cheap inventory of purchased stub votes would be locked into any plan it eventually got around to proposing."

Quigley, a unit of Pfizer Inc., filed for bankruptcy on Sept. 3, 2004 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. Its Chapter 11 case number is 04-15739.

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