John­son & John­son is ear­mark­ing near­ly US$9 bil­lion to cov­er al­le­ga­tions that its ba­by pow­er con­tain­ing talc caused can­cer, more than qua­dru­pling the amount that the com­pa­ny had pre­vi­ous­ly set aside to pay for its po­ten­tial li­a­bil­i­ty.

Un­der a pro­pos­al an­nounced yes­ter­day, a J&J sub­sidiary will re-file for Chap­ter 11 bank­rupt­cy pro­tec­tion and seek court ap­proval for a plan that would re­sult in one of the largest prod­uct-li­a­bil­i­ty set­tle­ments in U.S. his­to­ry.

The US$8.9 bil­lion that J&J would trans­fer to the sub­sidiary, LTL Man­age­ment, would be payable over the next 25 years. The amount is up from the US$2 bil­lion that the New Brunswick, New Jer­sey, com­pa­ny set aside in Oc­to­ber 2021.

The re­vised amount is be­ing backed by more than 60,000 par­ties that have filed law­suits al­leg­ing harm from J&J tal­cum pow­der, ac­cord­ing to the com­pa­ny.

J&J isn’t ad­mit­ting any wrong­do­ing as part of the pro­posed set­tle­ment, a point that com­pa­ny ex­ec­u­tive em­pha­sised in a Tues­day state­ment that main­tained the claims “are spe­cious and lack sci­en­tif­ic mer­it.”

But fight­ing the law­suits in court would take decades and be ex­pen­sive, said Erik Haas, J&J’s world­wide vice pres­i­dent of lit­i­ga­tion

The law­suits filed against J&J had al­leged its tal­cum pow­der caused users to de­vel­op ovar­i­an can­cer, through use for fem­i­nine hy­giene, or mesothe­lioma, a can­cer that strikes the lungs and oth­er or­gans. (AP)