This story has been corrected.
Two OEMs and two e-scrap processors will pay a combined $187,000 to settle allegations they’re legally responsible to help pay for CRT cleanups at former Closed Loop Refining and Recovery warehouses in Ohio.
A federal judge has approved settlements between the landlords, Garrison Southfield Park and Olymbec USA, and four defendants. The settling defendants are two OEMs, Haier America and Micro Center, and two e-scrap companies, Great Lakes Electronic Corporation and Accurate IT Services.
In March 2019, Garrison Southfield Park and Olymbec USA filed amended complaints alleging dozens of e-scrap companies were legally responsible for helping to fund the cleanup of abandoned CRT materials at three Columbus, Ohio warehouses. The landlords in August 2020 added a number of OEMs as defendants in the case.
The warehouses were leased by Closed Loop before the company closed in early 2016. The case is in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio.
On May 24, the judge approved the Haier America and Micro Center settlements. The companies will pay $90,000 and $27,490, respectively. The motion for settlement states Haier America was responsible for arranging shipments of roughly 610,005 pounds of CRT materials and Micro Center was responsible for the shipment of roughly 186,622 pounds.
Also on May 24, the judge approved settlements obligating Great Lakes Electronic Corporation to pay $46,379 and Accurate IT Services to pay $22,851, with payments spread over 18 months. The settlement documents indicate Great Lakes shipped 311,454 pounds of CRT materials and Accurate IT Services shipped 135,110 pounds.
To date, 33 companies have reached settlements and had those settlements approved by the judge (multiple Kuusakoski-owned defendants are counted as one company for the purposes of this tally). Those settlements have totaled nearly $10.3 million.
One defendant, Sony, had its $1.2 million settlement rejected by the court.
Eight other companies were removed from the case because they failed to respond to the complaint, went out of business or were mistakenly named as defendants. Another eight defendants remain active in the case.
This story has been corrected to include in the tally of approved settlements the Dec. 31, 2021, settlement approval for the Kuusakoski-owned defendants.
