Many of the asbestos companies are multi-billion dollar, multinational corporations with enormous assets and large amounts of insurance to pay asbestos claims. However, these corporations have done anything in their power to resist compensating of asbestos victims for their injuries.  For instance, W.R. Grace filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2001 because of a "sharply increasing number of asbestos claims." However, in 2002, the Justice Department intervened in a bankruptcy proceeding for the first time ever, alleging that before Grace asked for Chapter 11, it concealed money in new companies it bought. The Justice Department said it was a "fraudulent transfer" of money to protect itself from civil suits. Just before the bankruptcy trial was to begin, Grace returned almost $1 billion to the bankruptcy court. The company currently has annual sales of about $2 billion, more than 6,000 employees and operations in nearly 40 companies.

Even though they knew about the health dangers of asbestos exposure, the asbestos producing companies and those using asbestos in their manufactured products worked hard to keep OSHA and NIOSH from setting stricter limits for workers asbestos exposure. Delay tactics commonly used by industry groups included lobbying, lawsuits and stalling in filing requested information. Consequently, it took more than two decades for OSHA to set the "permissible exposure level" for asbestos in the workplace at 0.1 fiber per cubic centimeter over an eight-hour period, a level that NIOSH first recommended in 1976.

Wrongful acts of the asbestos companies are not just limited to the lack of warning to their workers. It also extends to the consumers of their products.  These companies have resisted and fought against asbestos label in their products, fearing that a warning would hurt sales. For instance W. R. Grace sold millions of bags of home attic insulation that contained asbestos, but the company never warned the public. Ford Motor Company to this day falsely denies the presence of any asbestos in the automobile parts it uses or manufactures.