A New Jersey judge has stripped a Washington, D.C., insurance recovery firm of $13 million in legal fees for failing to disclose conflicts of interest while doing bankruptcy work for Congoleum Corp.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kathryn Ferguson, supervising Congoleum’s Chapter 11 reorganization, found that if Gilbert Heintz & Randolph had come clean about the conflicts, she wouldn’t have approved the firm’s retention as special insurance counsel in January 2004.