Halliburton Co. Tuesday said its Kellogg Brown & Root and DII Industries units filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in a Pittsburgh court to resolve asbestos claims against the company.
Houston-based Halliburton, its energy services group and Kellogg Brown & Root's government services unit, which is providing support services to the U.S. military in Iraq, are not included in the bankruptcy filings, the company said.
Those units in the pre-packaged bankruptcy filings will continue normal operations while in Chapter 11.
The bankruptcies have been expected for a year as Halliburton negotiated details of a plan to settle hundreds of thousands of asbestos injury claims.
The bulk of the claims came from employees who worked on industrial furnaces made by DII prior to Halliburton's purchase of the company in the late 1990s, when U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney was chief executive of Halliburton.
As part of the plan, over 400,000 claimants agreed cash required to pay them would not exceed $2.78 billion. Halliburton will take a $1 billion pretax charge in the fourth quarter for the settlement.
