Headquartered in Oklahoma City, Devon Energy Corporation is a Fortune 500 company and among the largest U.S. based independent producers of natural gas and oil. Earlier this month, the company disclosed its purchase of a group annuity contract to transfer around $190 million in pension liabilities to an unnamed insurance company. The transfer represents roughly […]
The Archer Daniels Midland Company is an American global food processing and commodities trading corporation, headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. On November 2, 2018 they transferred about $500 million in payments for 3,800 retirees to Prudential Insurance Co. of America. This is the first such transfer for the company whose pension plan assets total $2.448 billion, with projected benefit obligations of $3.109 billion and […]
On October 26, 2018, AK Steel Corporation of West Chester, Ohio, purchased a group annuity contract from Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company in a move that will affect about 5,400 retirees. The transaction will transfer some $280 million in pension liabilities. This is the third such de-risking transaction for AK Steel; the company purchased two other […]
Attorney Eddie Stone, Edward Stone Law founder and special counsel to ProtectSeniors.org was interviewed by Cheddar TV on October 19, 2018 regarding the Sears Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing and its impact on the Sears pension plans. The Sears pension plans are underfunded to the tune of $1.5 billion, and if the Sears bankruptcy moves from reorganization […]
Sears formally filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday, October 15, 2018 in the Southern District of New York, after being unable to repay $134 million in loans. According to media reports, Sears plans to close about 142 of its 700 stores by year end. But the Sears bankruptcy filing could do more than just leave […]
Judge Anita B. Brody’s “Explanation and Order” of December 8, 2017 concluding that the anti-assignment language in the NFL Concussion Litigation Settlement Agreement “unambiguously prohibits” the class members from assigning their monetary awards rendering “any such purported assignment . . . void, invalid and of no force and effect” was adopted by Judge Loretta A. […]
Edward Stone, Special Counsel to ProtectSeniors.org was a guest speaker at the 2018 annual membership meeting of the Association of BellTel Retirees in Atlantic City, New Jersey on June 6, 2018. Mr. Stone’s presentation on pension derisking offered retirees information on the status of state legislative initiatives in New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, […]
Virginia is the latest state to enact legislation protecting retirees in pension derisking transfers. Senate Bill SB755 introduced by Senator Glen Sturtevant (R-Midlothian) with support from Delegate Dawn Adams (D-Richmond) received unanimous support in both the Virginia House and Senate. Virginia law now provides that (1) amounts payable to a participant under an annuity providing […]
Earlier this year we reported on MetLife’s failure to pay retirees to whom it owed benefits resulting from pension de-risking transfers. A lawsuit has now been filed against MetLife by Edward Roycroft, a former Martindale-Hubbell employee who retired in 1999. Roycroft was supposed to receive his benefits in 1999, but MetLife did not pay him […]
Prudential Financial Inc. has reported that it has lost track of some of its annuity clients. This announcement comes on the heels of MetLife’s announcement in December, 2017 that it had lost track of about 30,000 people to whom it owed pension payments as a result of pension de-risking transfers. According to BloombergMarkets, Prudential will […]
