Zombie Corporations and CERCLA Liability: Identifying and Pursuing Zombie PRPs

This CLE webinar will guide counsel on identifying, pursuing, or electing not to pursue defunct or "zombie" corporations and their insurance and other indemnification assets as a source of funding cleanup of contamination sites. The panel will discuss what to do after identifying zombie candidates, claims evaluation due diligence, litigation trends in these PRP and insurance cost recovery cases, the states where these claims are more likely to succeed, and how to manage and overcome impediments to successful recoveries.

As contamination site cleanup costs continue to rise, attorneys have looked to additional ways to tap into insurance coverage to pay for cleanup, including pursuing zombie corporations to reach their contingent insurance rights or unexhausted historic policies. With the right strategy, these assets can be triggered and monetized to help defray cleanup costs and reduce potential CERCLA liability of other parties.

Identifying a corporation alive enough to be pursued, but too dead to pay its share in the ordinary course poses its own problems. The share may not be “orphaned" until the zombie is proven to be unable to pay. What happens to the share? How much complication is caused by the presence of the zombie in any litigation, private allocation, or negotiation with the agencies?

Counsel face hurdles when reviving these corporations to pursue insurance claims such as understanding what the undistributed assets are and the laws that apply, identifying whether corporations are "dead and buried" and not subject to lawsuits, triggering the insurance coverage, representing the zombie, and managing the costs of PRP and insurance claims.

Listen as our authoritative panel discusses the pursuit of zombie corporations and their insurance assets and how to manage the claims for success.