CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- In the year before it filed for bankruptcy, Freedom Industries paid more than $6 million to its former owners and to companies affiliated with its current owners, court filings show.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- In the year before it filed for bankruptcy, Freedom Industries paid more than $6 million to its former owners and to companies affiliated with its current owners, court filings show.

These payments to what bankruptcy law calls "insiders" will be closely examined by Freedom's creditors and could be ordered returned to the company if they're deemed improper, bankruptcy lawyers said.

"It is a red flag," said Bob Simons, a bankruptcy lawyer with the Pittsburgh firm Reed Smith. "Any transfer within a year, to even as much as four years before the bankruptcy, can be scrutinized to see if those transfers should be returned to the bankruptcy estate."

Simons added that it is good that Freedom is being forthcoming and not trying to hide the payments.

He said if the transfers were made when the company was insolvent, or they helped make the company insolvent, then they could be "clawed back."

"The distinguishing feature of this case is that the spill arguably was unforeseen, so how do you plan for it?" Simons said. "You could argue that, if you transferred a lot of the money out of the company, you left it with unreasonably small capital. It would be tough to establish that, because this was an unforeseen liability, but I must say, not impossible under the right circumstances."

Freedom, which contaminated thousands of West Virginians' water with a chemical leak into the Elk River on Jan. 9, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Jan. 17. Under the bankruptcy code, Chapter 11 permits a company to reorganize and continue operating.

Three men identified as former owners of Freedom -- Dennis Farrell, Charles Herzing and William Tis -- all received at least $180,000 from Freedom in the year before the chemical leak.

Farrell, who remains with Freedom but no longer is an owner, received more than $288,000 in 33 "withdrawals or distributions" from the company in the past year, according to bankruptcy filings.

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Freedom payments a red flag