The True Meaning of Freedom
By Freedom owes $3.6 million to its top 20 unsecured creditors, according to bankruptcy documents. The company also owes more than $2.4 million in unpaid taxes to the Internal Revenue Service, and the IRS has placed at least three liens on Freedom’s property, demanding payment.
The unpaid taxes date back to at least 2000, according to a lien filed in 2010.
Under the bankruptcy code, Chapter 11 permits a company to reorganize and continue operating.
The filing also puts a hold on all of the lawsuits filed against Freedom Industries. Since the leak last week, about a mile and a half upriver from West Virginia Water American’s plant in Charleston, about 25 lawsuits have been filed against Freedom in Kanawha Circuit Court. The company also faces a federal lawsuit.
That’s a neat trick, filing bankruptcy at the same time that locals are filing suit against you because of your actions. Just a coincidence, I’m sure. But then doing the same is so easy for everyday people, filing bankruptcy to get out of devastating student loan debt for instance, that it’s really only fair that we extend the same right to corporations….. But then the coal industry has always expressed nothing but respect for the people of West Virginia.