Mass-tort product liability cases are particularly difficult to resolve because there are few adequate procedural devices to ensure finality through settlement. Parties interested in resolving mass-tort litigation often overlook that channeling injunction protections are not just available to debtors. In many contexts, non-debtors too can benefit from the same channeling injunction protections as settling non-debtors.

A court-approved channeling injunction can direct—or channel—tort claims to a litigation trust funded by participating parties. Claimants must then look exclusively to the trust assets to satisfy their claims, which can provide them with an efficient claims-evaluation process that typically does not require the level of proof they would need to satisfy in court. At the same time, the channeling injunction and trust insulate debtors, certain non-debtor defendants, and other participants from known current and future claims. Bankruptcy Code Section 105 (and Section 524(g) for asbestos bankruptcies) grants a court broad powers to establish such trusts and issue injunctions that channel claims against debtor and non-debtors with a sufficient unity of interest.