2 Directors Quit Robins’ Compensation Committee

Two members of A. H. Robins Co.’s board of directors have resigned from the board’s compensation committee but will retain their seats on the board, a company spokesman said Thursday.

The resignations of William L. Zimmer III and George E. Thomas came Tuesday at a directors’ meeting, company spokesman Roscoe Puckett said. “The gentlemen resigned to preclude any appearance of self-dealing.”

The pharmaceutical company was found in contempt of court Saturday for making more than $21 million in payments on debts that it had incurred before it filed for Chapter 11 protection under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code on Aug. 21 in the wake of mounting claims relating to its Dalkon Shield birth control device.

Under federal bankruptcy law, money owed by a company at the time it files a bankruptcy petition cannot be paid without a court order to ensure that all creditors are treated equally.

Zimmer, retired president of the company, was paid more than $200,000 in February in deferred bonus payments from 1971 through 1978. A total of $1.75 million was made in similar payments to other company executives.

Those payments were included in the amount contested by the bankruptcy court.