Rochester Business Journal

Eastman Kodak Co. has asked the U.S. Bankruptcy Court to speed a decision on whether it can ink a new contract with Carestream Health Inc.

Kodak filed a Bankruptcy Court motion last week asking the court for permission to sign a contract with Carestream for coating services.

Until Kodak sold it to a Canadian private-equity group for $2.25 billion in 2007, Carestream was a Kodak unit. A maker of digital and analog medical imaging equipment as well as X-ray film, Carestream has its headquarters in a Verona Street building attached to Kodak’s State Street headquarters. It employs some 7,000 worldwide, including 1,250 locally.
 
The agreement Kodak wants to sign would extend a 2008 pact with Carestream that expired April 30 and calls for Carestream to provide coating for imaging loops as part of Kodak’s Digimaster digital print business.

The coating work is done at facilities Carestream leases from Kodak in the Eastman Business Park. Carestream has agreed to honor the contract through the end of June, Kodak states in court papers. The new pact would carry the deal through 2014.

In a second motion filed simultaneously with the request to renew the contract, Kodak asked for an expedited hearing to be scheduled June 25.

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