Monthly Archives: <span>July 2020</span>

Care for Montana Towns Polluted with Asbestos Transferred to State

State regulators are taking over maintenance of a decades-long environmental cleanup in two northwestern Montana towns where lung-damaging asbestos contamination has been blamed in hundreds of deaths. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on last week transferred responsibility for protecting the …

COVID-19 Treatment Remdesivir to Cost Private Insurers $3,120

The maker of a drug shown to shorten recovery time for severely ill COVID-19 patients says it will charge $2,340 for a typical treatment course for people covered by government health programs in the United States and other developed countries. …

Court Refuses to Open ‘Loophole’ for Cruise Line Lawsuits

A plaintiff’s attorney cannot avoid a showdown with a cruise line at the federal courthouse in Miami simply by pleading the case as an action that does not require the court’s jurisdiction under admiralty law, a federal appellate court ruled …

Judge Sanctions Mountaire in Delaware Wastewater Lawsuit

A Superior Court judge has ordered an Arkansas poultry processing company and two Delaware subsidiaries to pay more than $28,000 in sanctions for repeatedly refusing to provide information to plaintiffs suing the company over wastewater violations in southern Delaware. The …

Return-to-Work Safety: Employers Find Testing Employees More Trouble Than It’s Worth

From nursing homes in New York and a landfill in Utah to Disney World and the Las Vegas Strip, employers are wrestling with workplace safety in the age of Covid-19 and making fraught calculations about how to safeguard both their …

Injured Workers Pharmacy Will Pay $11M to Settle Complaint By Mass. AG’s Office

A mail-order pharmacy that fought frequent court battles against workers’ compensation insurers will pay $11 million and change its business practices to settle a civil complaint by the Massachusetts attorney general’s office. Injured Workers Pharmacy, or IWP, improperly dispensed opioids …

UK-Based Tech Platform Xchanging Hit by Ransomware Attack

DXC Technology announced that certain systems of its subsidiary, Xchanging, have experienced a ransomware attack. Xchanging is primarily an insurance managed services business that operates on a standalone basis. Tysons, Va.-based DXC said it is confident that this incident is …

Hiscox Launches ‘Variable Consortium’ for Hard-to-Place U.S. General Liability Risks

Hiscox, the Bermuda-based specialist insurer, together with RKH Reinsurance Brokers, has launched a new variable consortium with a maximum line of over US$20 million for a range of challenging general liability risks such as wildfire, trucking and construction. A market …

Heavy Rains Batter China, Raising Flood Alert Levels for Cities on Yangtze River

SHANGHAI — The central Chinese city of Wuhan, epicenter of the new coronavirus pandemic, raised its flood alert level on Monday as torrential rain and thunderstorms battered swathes of the country, including the Yangtze river on which it sits. Wuhan …

Torrential Rains Cause Floods in SW Japan, with Nearly 40 Feared Dead

Nearly 40 people were feared dead as torrential rains continued to hit Japan’s southwestern island of Kyushu, with river banks at risk of bursting on Monday morning and new evacuation orders put in place. Flooding and mudslides that began at …