CLEVELAND, Jan. 09, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Sotera Health Company SHCa leading global provider of mission-critical, end-to-end sterilization solutions and laboratory testing and consulting services to the healthcare industry, announced today that its subsidiaries have reached agreements to resolve the more than 870 pending ethylene oxide (“EO”) cases against Sterigenics the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois and the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

Under the terms of the agreements, Sterigenics will pay $408 million to settle the claims, provided that substantially all plaintiffs opt-in to their individual settlement awards and reject their claims with prejudice. The settlement agreements are expected to take up to 90-120 days to administer and complete. Sterigenics and Sotera Health LLC disclaim any liability, and the agreements expressly state that the settlements shall not be construed as an admission of any liability or that emissions from the Willowbrook facilities have ever posed a safety hazard to surrounding communities.

Sotera Health Company issued the following statement:

The agreements provide a path to the comprehensive resolution of pending claims against Sterigenics and Sotera Health LLC in Illinois, allowing the company to focus its full attention on conducting business, serving our customers and fulfilling our mission to protect global health focus^®. Sterigenics maintains that its activities at Willowbrook posed no safety risk to the community in which it operated and believes the evidence and science ultimately led to the dismissal of the plaintiffs’ claims, as was the case in the Teresa Fornek trial . Years of biased media coverage in the Chicago area, the substantial cost of posting large bail to support the appeal of the Kamuda judgment, and the time and expense it would have required to continue to secure hundreds of…