Northwest Territorial Mint Files for Bankruptcy After Losing Defamation Suit

Northwest Territorial Mint LLC put its coin-and-medallion-making operations into bankruptcy on Friday, facing a demand to pay part of a $38.3 million defamation award — one of the country’s largest Internet defamation verdicts — to a Los Angeles businessman and his real-estate firm.
Officials for the mint, located near Seattle, listed the judgment owed to Bradley S. Cohen and to Cohen Asset Management Inc. as a “disputed” debt in bankruptcy court documents. A lawyer for the company couldn’t be reached to explain how the filing will affect its operations, which make coins and commemorative medallions for the U.S. military and other customers.
The 200-worker company, based in the town of Federal Way south of Seattle, on its website calls itself the country’s largest private mint with other minting facilities in Texas and Nevada and die-cutting and sculpting facility in Green Bay, Wis.
Earlier this year a jury awarded Mr. Cohen and his company, the mint’s former landlord, $38.3 million in his defamation suit against the mint and its owner, Ross Hansen. Northwest Territorial Mint is on the hook for $12.5 million of that amount.

This post was published at Wall Street Journal