LeGrow Tosses Suit Over DuPont's Chemours Spinoff
A Delaware judge on Tuesday dismissed a fraud suit accusing DuPont of using its 2015 spinoff of The Chemours Co. to insulate the company from the growing liability stemming from litigation related to the supposed dumping of toxic chemicals.
November 29, 2017 at 07:26 PM
2 minute read
A Delaware judge on Tuesday dismissed a fraud suit accusing DuPont of using its 2015 spinoff of The Chemours Co. to insulate the company from the growing liability stemming from litigation related to the supposed dumping of toxic chemicals.
Delaware Superior Court Judge Abigail M. Legrow said the lawsuit from Matthew Mooney, a former investor in the Delaware chemical giant, had targeted forward-looking statements the company had made in support of the transaction, which DuPont said was part of a long-term plan to focus on higher-growth assets.
Mooney, who reported a loss on his investment in DuPont, said in February that the company had instead used the spinoff of its performance chemical division to distance itself from “potentially debilitating” risk associated with the alleged dumping of the chemical C8, which had been linked to various forms of cancer and other illnesses.
Legrow, however, noted that DuPont's statements expressed the company's expectations for the spinoff and that Mooney failed to show that DuPont had intentionally mislead investors at the time.
“Mooney has not sufficiently pleaded, either generally or with particularity, any contemporaneous fact supporting an inference DuPont knew its statements were false when made or lacked a good faith belief in their truth,” she wrote. “Rather, Mooney only cites events arising well after the statements were made,”
DuPont, which completed its merger with Dow Chemical Co. in September, had argued that Chemours was responsible for damages and environmental liabilities associated with the C8 dumping under an indemnification provision of the separation agreement the companies signed in the spinoff.
Dow and DuPont earlier this year settled multidistrict litigation for $670.7 million, and DuPont agreed to share in covering liabilities associated with C8 for the next five years. The company has also said that it has accrued $1.3 billion in likely environmental and restoration costs.
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