The class action lawsuit, Thondukolam v. Corteva, Inc., was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, case number 3:19-cv-03857-SK.

The proposed class includes more than 100,000 people, including retirees and beneficiaries in the pension plan. Edward Stone Law PC is working with Beasley Allen, Kantor & Kantor, and Sinclair Law Firm, to represent the retirees.

In 2015, the 217-year-old DuPont merged with Dow Chemical to create DowDuPont. In 2019, the new corporate entity split into three new companies Corteva, DuPont and Dow. Corteva is a combination of DuPont and Dow agriculture businesses. Through this scheme, DuPont and Dow shifted all liability for the DuPont U.S. pension, which has covered DuPont employees in America since 1904, to the newly created Corteva. The liability of the DuPont U.S. Pension plan is approximately $19 billion.

Plaintiffs argue that Corteva, which solely focuses on agriscience business, understates its liabilities including income fluctuations due to weather, global trade, and other factors beyond the company’s control. Additionally, the agriscience business involves the manufacture of chemicals already subject to large-scale litigation, the liability for which was also transferred to Corteva. Other corporate spin transactions of DuPont have also come under scrutiny. Plaintiffs also contend that under Corteva the pension plan is underfunded and uses overly optimistic estimates. Now that Corteva, Dow, and DuPont are three separate companies, Corteva can file for bankruptcy and discharge its responsibility to fund the promised pensions, leaving retirees to receive pennies on the dollar. Neither DuPont nor Dow will be affected by such a bankruptcy.

“Because of the Defendants’ actions, the plan, which was already in a downward funding spiral, is now left with an empty shell company as a plan sponsor, linked to a newly formed company that is also saddled with all of the environmental and agricultural liabilities of the historical Dow/DuPont companies. This completely separated the new, stable Dow and DuPont companies from any repercussions should the pension fail. The Defendants have attempted to avoid a legally required $6 billion funding obligation to the plan and thereby breached their fiduciary duties to the Plan as well as violated ERISA’s employee protective purpose. This lawsuit will correct this misconduct by the plan sponsors.” said W. Daniel “Dee” Miles, head of Beasley Allen’s Consumer Fraud Section.

Earlier this year two companies announced the purchase of group annuity contracts from Pacific Life Insurance Company for the purpose of pension de-risking.  In a $370 million transaction, S&P Global transferred its obligations to 4,600 retirees to Pacific Life.  Lennox International, the heating and cooling company transferred $100 million in pension obligations to Pacific Life Insurance Company.  In 2016, Lennox offered lump-sum buyouts to vested participants.  Few details were released about either of the Pacific Life transactions.

Dana Incorporated, the Maumee, Ohio based maker of power-conveyance and energy management solutions for vehicles and machinery has now transferred all liabilities associated with the Dana Retirement Plan, by purchasing group annuity contracts for the remaining plan participants.  The company contributed approximately $62 million in cash to the Retirement Plan in order to facilitate the purchase of two group annuity contracts. One contract, purchased from Athene Annuity and Life Company (a subsidiary of Athene Holding Ltd.) will cover all but the New York retirees. New York retirees will receive their pension benefits in the form of annuity payments from Companion Life Insurance Company, a subsidiary of United of Omaha Life Insurance Company. Dana’s retirees will begin receiving payments from the two insurance companies in October, 2019.