Uniroyal Holding, Inc., the legacy entity created in 1985 to hold the discontinued-operations and asbestos liabilities of the former United States Rubber Company, filed for chapter 11 protection on July 31, 2026 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey (Trenton), Case No. 26-18668, before Judge Michael B. Kaplan. The debtors filed a proposed joint plan, disclosure statement, and a restructuring support agreement (RSA) with an ad hoc group of asbestos claimant firms on the petition date itself, seeking to channel more than 35,000 pending personal-injury and wrongful-death (PI/WD) claims into a trust and dissolve the company once the trust is funded.
Unlike most first-day filings, Uniroyal's declaration frames the case not as a liquidity crisis but as a planned wind-down: the company's five remaining employees, all approaching retirement, want to hand off claims administration to a trust before they leave rather than let a 141-year-old company's asbestos liabilities go unmanaged. The Declaration in Support of Chapter 11 states that Uniroyal has no funded debt and describes the filing as timed to the employees' departure rather than to an insurance or funding shortfall. The petition itself listed $10 million to $50 million in assets and $50 million to $100 million in liabilities.
Uniroyal Holding, Inc. (2 jointly administered entities, incl. Great Hill Corporation)
Court
U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of New Jersey (Trenton)
Case Number
26-18668
Petition Date
July 31, 2026
Judge
Hon. Michael B. Kaplan
Case Snapshot
From United States Rubber to a Legacy Asbestos Shell
Uniroyal Holding's origins trace to United States Rubber Company, organized in New Jersey in 1892 and later one of the original 12 companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average when the index launched in 1896 under the ticker R. The company rebranded as Uniroyal, Inc. in the 1960s. Facing a hostile takeover threat in 1985, Uniroyal's management pursued a leveraged buyout backed by Clayton & Dubilier Private Equity Fund Ltd. Partnership, which still holds roughly 32.5% of Uniroyal's fully diluted stock. The 1985 restructuring split the company into six new subsidiaries, spinning discontinued consumer-products, footwear, belting, hose, and asbestos-textile operations — including World War II-era asbestos cloth developed for the U.S. Navy — into the newly formed Uniroyal Holding, Inc.
The tire and synthetic-rubber business went to a separate entity, Uniroyal Tire Company, which formed a joint venture with B.F. Goodrich in August 1986 to create Uniroyal-Goodrich Tire Company. Tire sold its interest in that venture to Compagnie Générale des Établissements Michelin in May 1990, and its corporate registration lapsed in 2007. Meanwhile, the original Uniroyal, Inc. and its parent, CDU Holding, Inc., dissolved in December 1986 into a liquidating trust that ran until October 1997, when Great Hill Corporation was formed to absorb the remaining unknown liabilities — funded through an intercompany loan that Uniroyal Holding still carries on its books as a $2.48 million note maturing July 20, 2028. The declaration states the company has occupied the same converted-warehouse office in Naugatuck, Connecticut for 35 years, and describes Uniroyal as potentially "the last, or one of the last," asbestos product manufacturers to file for bankruptcy, following more than 100 earlier defendants including Johns-Manville, Raybestos-Manhattan, and W.R. Grace.
Asbestos Claims History and the GIC Plan
Since its 1985 formation, Uniroyal has faced 516,656 PI/WD claims, of which it has paid just under $500 million to resolve 216,994 claims and spent $160 million on defense costs; another 264,232 claims were dismissed without payment. New filings escalated through the 1990s and early 2000s — from 18,975 in 1993 to a high-water mark of 70,107 in 2002 — before Uniroyal developed what the declaration calls the "GIC Plan," a mechanism that deposited funds, initially through AAA-rated guaranteed investment contracts and later through assigned insurance-settlement receivables, into dedicated trusts for individual plaintiffs' firms in exchange for reduced settlement values and removal of claims from active litigation. The company says the GIC Plan cut asbestos settlement costs by more than 90% and reduced annual defense spending from a peak of $15 million to under $500,000. The petition names 30 law firms with the largest pending asbestos dockets against Uniroyal, ranging from 22,754 cases attributed to Weitz & Luxenberg to 32 cases attributed to Wallace & Graham P.A., though all of those claims are listed as undetermined in amount. Uniroyal Holding President and General Counsel Robert V. D'Angelo said in a court declaration that the company had "successfully settled or defended claims against it and managed its liabilities" for 40 years, but that the claims volume "will quickly become unmanageable upon retirement of the current Uniroyal employee team that has actively directed and coordinated this effort".
Of the 516,656 total claims, roughly 35,430 had neither been paid nor dismissed as of the petition date — consistent with the more than 35,000 pending PI/WD claims cited in the retiree-committee motion and the population the proposed trust is designed to resolve.
Uniroyal also pursued roughly 12 years of coverage litigation against its liability carriers, recovering approximately $400 million from upper-layer insurers plus another $100 million from first-layer excess carriers in 1980s litigation. Combined with more than $181 million of its own funds, the company says those recoveries have funded PI/WD settlements and defense costs continuously through the petition date. As of the filing, roughly 140 people with an average age of 92 receive retiree medical and life-insurance benefits through Uniroyal, down from more than 10,000 beneficiaries when the company first assumed the program — the shrinking population that, along with the retiring employee team, drove the timing of the filing.
Restructuring Support Agreement and the Proposed Asbestos Trust
Uniroyal signed the RSA on the petition date with an ad hoc group of law firms that the declaration says represents approximately 88% of known PI/WD claimants, though the RSA's own Exhibit A states supporting counsel represents at least 75% of currently asserted claims. The ad hoc group's schedule of signatory firms includes Weitz & Luxenberg, P.C., Early, Lucarelli, Sweeney & Meisenkothen LLC, Cooney & Conway LLP, and the Law Offices of Peter T. Nicholl, among others; the group is advised by Brown Rudnick LLP as legal counsel and Province LLC as financial advisor, with Daniel Stolz of Stevens & Lee, P.C. entering an appearance as New Jersey counsel on the petition date. Negotiations began in August 2025, roughly 11 months before the RSA was signed.
The proposed joint plan would channel PI/WD claims into a trust funded with a Minimum Trust Recovery of $31.5 million in cash on the plan's effective date — a floor that is not reduced by future trust recoveries or by administrative and professional fee claims. Trust assets would also include retained causes of action, insurance rights and proceeds, and data-transfer documents, after satisfaction of non-PI/WD claims. Under the plan's class structure, secured claims, other priority claims, and general unsecured claims are unimpaired and deemed to accept without a vote, to be paid in full in cash; PI/WD claims are impaired and entitled to vote through a master ballot process run by claimant counsel; and intercompany claims and existing equity interests are impaired and deemed to reject, to be cancelled without distribution. PI/WD claims are the plan's only voting class, and the plan pairs its release provisions with a consensual third-party release opt-out available to every class except intercompany claims. The disclosure statement sets a confirmation hearing for October 20, 2026 and states that, if the plan becomes effective, the debtors will transfer trust assets and dissolve once their distribution and funding obligations are satisfied. The court's order and notice on the disclosure statement, entered August 4, 2026, fixed the disclosure-statement hearing for September 10, 2026 at 11:30 a.m. ET before Judge Kaplan in Trenton and set August 27, 2026 as the deadline to object, directing that the disclosure statement and plan be distributed within two business days of entry. The separately proposes a September 7, 2026 voting record date, an October 6, 2026 plan-supplement deadline, and an October 16, 2026 reply deadline ahead of confirmation. The plan also proposes releases and exculpations tied to the solicitation process, all subject to confirmation.
Retiree Benefits and the Section 1114 Committee
Alongside the plan, Uniroyal filed a motion to appoint a retiree committee under section 1114 to negotiate a consensual modification of its retiree medical and life-insurance program, arguing that a committee or representative is necessary given the roughly 140 remaining beneficiaries. The court granted that motion on August 3, 2026 (entered August 4), directing the U.S. Trustee to appoint a retiree committee under section 1114. The order limits the committee to the powers and duties set out in section 1114(b)(2) and states that neither the motion nor the order authorizes assuming, rejecting, terminating, or modifying any retiree-benefit plan, or determines the validity, priority, or vested status of any retiree-benefit claim. The Naugatuck-based ad hoc group of Uniroyal retirees has already appeared in the case: Rachel A. Parisi of Porzio, Bromberg & Newman, P.C. entered an appearance for the group, separate from the asbestos claimants' ad hoc group. With the remaining retiree population averaging 92 years old, Mercer Health & Benefits LLC advised Uniroyal on a competitive bid process among insurance and benefits-exchange providers for the benefits transition. Under the proposed plan, specified employee, retiree, and benefit plans would be treated as executory contracts and rejected on the effective date except as otherwise ordered — a step tied to the broader wind-down rather than an immediate benefit cutoff.
Cash Management, Alternative Noticing, and Bar Dates
The court granted joint administration on August 3, 2026, designating Case No. 26-18668 as the lead case and Great Hill Corporation's Case No. 26-18671 as the member case, and entered a series of interim first-day orders the same day.
Uniroyal's cash management motion, which the court granted on an interim basis that same day, discloses six accounts across three institutions: two Webster Bank operating accounts, a Vanguard brokerage account holding approximately $35 million at the petition date, and two Bank of America legacy and severance accounts holding roughly $1 million combined. The company also sought, and the court likewise authorized on an interim basis, continued payment to its five employees, with monthly payroll of approximately $103,000, accrued paid-time-off of roughly $210,000, and related payroll tax and benefit obligations.
Alongside those orders, the debtors sought alternative noticing procedures that would substitute a PI/WD claimant-counsel service list for a traditional top-20 unsecured creditor list and use claimant counsel's addresses in the creditor matrix rather than individual claimants' — relief the debtors modeled on precedent from In re Presperse Corp. and In re LTL Management LLC. The court approved that procedure on an interim basis as well, authorizing the debtors to file the thirty-firm list in lieu of individually noticing PI/WD claimants. That motion states the debtors anticipate the U.S. Trustee will appoint an official committee of PI/WD claimants, a body distinct from the section 1114 retiree committee described above.
A bar date motion sought a general bar date alongside an amended-schedules bar date and a rejection-damages bar date, each running 30 days from the triggering amendment notice or rejection order, plus a governmental-unit bar date; PI/WD claims are excluded from all of these deadlines and instead flow through the plan's trust distribution procedures. The court shortened notice on that motion, held a hearing on August 10, 2026, and the same day entered a Bar-Date Order fixing the General Bar Date at 5:00 p.m. ET on September 8, 2026 for claims other than PI/WD claims and the Governmental Bar Date at 5:00 p.m. ET on January 27, 2027. Separately, the court's Notice of Commencement of Chapter 11 Case, filed August 11, 2026, set the section 341 meeting of creditors for August 31, 2026 at 1:00 p.m. Eastern, to be conducted by video through ZoomGov rather than in person.
Omni Agent Solutions is retained as claims and noticing agent, an appointment the court approved on an interim basis on August 3, 2026, with a $25,000 prepetition retainer and hourly rates of $50 to $295 discounted 20%; the retention application discloses that a Fortress Investment Group, LLC affiliate acquired a majority stake in Omni in March 2026.
Debevoise & Plimpton LLP and Duane Morris LLP negotiated the plan and RSA on the debtors' behalf before the petition date. On August 17, 2026, the debtors applied to retain Duane Morris as New Jersey co-counsel alongside Debevoise, proposing hourly rates of $900 to $1,200 per hour for the attorneys likely to staff the matter, with partner Morris Bauer billing $1,100 per hour and Klara Bradbury billing $650 per hour. The application discloses a $40,000 prepetition retainer, $231,876 paid to Duane Morris in the year preceding the petition, and a $68,640 retainer balance as of the petition date; neither co-counsel application had been approved as of the case's most recent docket activity.
On August 20, 2026, the debtors also applied to retain Alvarez & Marsal North America, LLC as restructuring advisor, effective July 31, 2026 if approved, to manage the restructuring process, prepare 13-week cash-flow forecasts, analyze current and future tort liabilities, and support financing and plan-confirmation work. The application proposes hourly rates of $1,100 to $1,575 for managing directors, $850 to $1,100 for directors, $625 to $825 for associates, and $450 to $600 for analysts, and discloses a $50,000 filing retainer against an estimated $48,655.19 unapplied residual retainer; like the co-counsel applications, it remained pending as of the case's most recent docket activity.
The debtors' schedules and statements of financial affairs, filed August 1, 2026, list total stated assets of $2,490,235.11 against liabilities of $595,901.29, all unsecured and none secured or priority — figures that reflect Uniroyal's status as an asbestos-liability administration vehicle rather than an operating business. The debtors separately moved to seal portions of those schedules that disclose confidential prepetition asbestos-settlement terms.
Key Timeline
Date
Event
Aug 2025
Negotiations begin between Uniroyal and the asbestos claimants' ad hoc group
Schedules and statements of financial affairs filed
Aug 3, 2026
Court grants joint administration and enters interim orders on cash management, wages and benefits, claims-noticing procedures, and Omni's appointment as claims and noticing agent
Aug 3, 2026 (entered Aug 4)
Court directs U.S. Trustee to appoint a section 1114 retiree committee
Aug 4, 2026
Court fixes the disclosure-statement hearing and objection deadline; shortens notice on the bar-date motion
Aug 10, 2026
Court holds hearing and enters the Bar-Date Order, fixing the General Bar Date and the Governmental Bar Date
Aug 11, 2026
Notice of Commencement of Chapter 11 Case sets the meeting of creditors
Aug 17, 2026
Debtors apply to retain Duane Morris LLP and Debevoise & Plimpton LLP as co-counsel (pending)
Aug 20, 2026
Debtors apply to retain Alvarez & Marsal North America, LLC as restructuring advisor (pending)
Aug 27, 2026
Disclosure statement objection deadline
Aug 31, 2026
Section 341 meeting of creditors (ZoomGov)
Sept 7, 2026 (proposed)
Voting record date
Sept 8, 2026
General Bar Date, entered via the Bar-Date Order (excludes PI/WD and other specified claims)
Sept 10, 2026
Disclosure statement hearing
Oct 6, 2026 (proposed)
Plan supplement due
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is the claims agent for Uniroyal Holding?
Omni Agent Solutions, Inc. serves as claims and noticing agent under its retention application, which discloses a $25,000 prepetition retainer and a discounted hourly rate schedule.
What is the Minimum Trust Recovery?
It is the $31.5 million cash floor that Uniroyal's proposed plan requires to fund the PI/WD trust on the plan's effective date. The floor does not decrease if future trust recoveries fall short or if administrative and professional fees consume other assets.
Is Uniroyal Holding related to the Uniroyal Chemical/Crompton/Chemtura companies?
No. Uniroyal Holding descends from the rubber and tire side of the historic Uniroyal, Inc., created in the 1985 restructuring to hold discontinued operations and asbestos liabilities. It is a separate legal lineage from Uniroyal Chemical Company, which later became part of Crompton and then Chemtura.
What happens to non-asbestos creditors?
The proposed plan places secured claims, other priority claims, and general unsecured claims in unimpaired classes that are deemed to accept the plan and paid in full in cash, without a vote.
hearing on August 10, 2026 /documents/64d9b833-01ed-43a8-a930-4dd27c508238/
Bar-Date Order /documents/7a1f0597-4557-48a7-98ee-aff3ab12ae0b/
Notice of Commencement of Chapter 11 Case /documents/9f5cc0bf-8d50-4ca4-9ee4-8911d5df6f26/
Omni Agent Solutions /documents/ee845e39-3b53-416b-a03f-3674b691963c/
approved on an interim basis /documents/f0639a52-ce2d-4370-9997-ff6b5edbe768/
applied to retain Duane Morris as New Jersey co-counsel /documents/41c15a5b-da18-46c2-9099-9649a1fecc0e/
applied to retain Alvarez & Marsal North America, LLC /documents/2ec0476a-6d36-40bb-9164-e4e3a5231a25/
schedules and statements of financial affairs /documents/2717e26c-436e-478a-a1de-445a76aae838/
filed for chapter 11 protection https://www.law360.com/bankruptcy/articles/2508494
listed $10 million to $50 million in assets and $50 million to $100 million in liabilities https://rubberworld.com/uniroyal-holding-files-for-chapter-11-bankruptcy-protection/
newly formed Uniroyal Holding https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/uniroyal-rolls-into-new-jersey-with-3163121/
$2.48 million note maturing July 20, 2028 https://finance.yahoo.com/small-business/articles/defunct-iconic-tire-brand-files-190107505.html
This article was researched and written with AI assistance, using court filings, public records, and news sources. AI-generated content can contain errors. Verify all information against primary sources before relying on it. This is not legal or financial advice. See the disclaimer.