Manville Plan Criticized: Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp., which...

Manville Plan Criticized: Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp., which is both a co-defendant and beneficiary in the massive Manville asbestos case, complained that a proposed reorganization of the cash poor Manville trust is a “disaster.” At a hearing in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, N.Y., Owens attorney Roger Podesta asked Judge Jack Weinstein to withhold approval of a key element of the restructuring plan for the Manville Personal Injury Settlement Trust. A cornerstone of the new plan--submitted to Weinstein on Monday--is the proposal to set up a single class-action suit that combines about 130,000 federal and state asbestos cases, and to appoint a lawyer committee to represent them.