Item 8.01. Other Events

As disclosed in Ashland Inc.'s Form 10-Q for the quarter ended December 31, 2008, Hercules Incorporated ("Hercules"), a wholly owned subsidiary of Ashland Inc. acquired pursuant to a merger completed in November 2008, was a defendant in approximately thirty-one lawsuits (including two purported class actions) in which plaintiffs alleged that exposure to Agent Orange caused them to sustain various personal injuries. Hercules was also sued in a purported class action filed by The Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin and several individuals who claimed to represent between two and four million Vietnamese who alleged that Agent Orange used by the United States during the Vietnam War caused them or their families to sustain personal injuries. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York dismissed all of the lawsuits then pending, including the lawsuit brought by The Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the dismissals in 2008. On March 2, 2009, the U. S. Supreme Court denied plaintiffs' Petition for Writ of Certiorari, effectively ending this litigation.

- 2 -