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Pension Plan Restoration

DSRA Members

Michigan Attorney General Nessel Leads Coalition in Protecting Delphi Retirees

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Published: Thursday, 04 November 2021 11:50
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel led a coalition with six other attorneys general in filing an amicus brief before the United States Supreme Court in Dennis Black et al v. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, which argues the due process rights of former Delphi Corporation employees were violated when the corporation's bankruptcy resulted in termination of Delphi's pension plan.
Petitioners in the lawsuit are former employees of Delphi, an auto-parts manufacturer and supplier, and were participants in Delphi's pension plan. After Delphi filed for bankruptcy, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) executed an agreement with the pension plan's administrator to terminate the pension plan. Read full press release ...

Detroit Free Press — MI Attorney General Nessel asks US Supreme Court to take up Delphi retirees' plea for fairness

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Published: Thursday, 04 November 2021 15:35
     Detroit Free Press | Todd Spangler
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel on Thursday threw her office's weight behind a group of former auto employees' effort to try to get the retirement benefits they earned.
Nessel wrote a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of her office and those of six other states' attorneys general asking the court to take up an appeal by a group of retirees who used to work for Delphi, which was spun off of General Motors.. Read article ...

U.S. Supreme Court Places DSRA Petition on Its Docket

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Published: Tuesday, 05 October 2021 21:26
DSRA's Petition asks the Supreme Court to review the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals' 2020 ruling that upheld the PBGC's 2009 involuntary termination of the Delphi salaried retirees pension plan.
"The Sixth Circuit got it very wrong, on matters of exceptional importance to the nation’s pensioners, and in substantial disagreement with other circuits." – So argues our 36-page petition – click here for redacted copy – that the Supreme Court placed in its docket on October 4, 2021.
For more than 40 years, the PBGC has terminated pension plans governed by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (“ERISA”) that the PBGC deems to be in distress, through agreements with the administrators of the plans.  There’s no judicial oversight or hearing of any sort for participants like Delphi salaried retirees who will lose benefits upon termination.  The termination of our salaried pension is one example.
On behalf of Delphi salaried retirees, DSRA’s petition asks the Court (1) whether ERISA indeed permits this, and (2) does termination of a pension plan through such an agreement violate the participants’ constitutional rights to due process?  In arguing in our petition that we indeed have been denied due process, we cite a 1980 Supreme Court decision (Nachman Corp. v. PBGC) that we believe the Sixth Circuit overlooked in finding for the PBGC in 2020.  We hope the Supreme Court will agree to examine our case.

Momentum Building in Congress to Restore Our Pension Plan

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Published: Thursday, 25 March 2021 20:40
     Updated Tuesday, 24 August 2021
August 23, 2021 — Response from The Treasury (obo The PBGC Board) — tells DSRA to "go ask Congress, not us" — 28 congressmen are told in a letter from the Treasury Department that "The Departments of Treasury, Labor and Commerce concluded that Congressional action would be required to restore these lost pension benefits. Therefore, we have not taken further steps on this issue."
July 20, 2021 — 28 Members of the U.S. House Representatives — 11 Democrats and 17 Republicans in whose congressional districts live a considerable number of Delphi salaried retirees — send a letter to the Secretaries of Commerce, Labor and Treasury — the trio from President Biden’s cabinet comprise the PBGC board of directors.  The letter is almost identical to the letter from eight U.S. senators sent on June 10.  The letter presses the Executive Branch of government to act on President Trump’s directive of last October.  It says in part, "We understand this review was due on January 20, 2021 – before you assumed your current roles … we ask you to provide us with an update on the status of the report.  Specifically, we ask you to inform us when work on this report commenced, when you expect this report to be completed, and when Congress can expect to receive a copy for review."

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Summary of DSRA’s Litigation Against the PBGC

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Published: Tuesday, 30 June 2020 00:00
     Updated Thursday, 7 October 2021
DSRA continues to believe that the PBGC's termination of the Delphi salaried retirees' pension plans was improper.  The U.S. District Court in Detroit and Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati ruled in favor of the PBGC – however, DSRA strongly maintains that federal law was violated.  DSRA has now filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court, asking it to review our case during its 2021-22 session. On October 4, 2021, the Supreme Court granted us leave to file a petition for a writ of certiorari under seal, with redacted copies for the public record.  Click here for more details on this development.

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