California Just Named DuPont's Newest Spinoff in Its PFAS Lawsuit — Alleging a Pattern of Moving Liabilities Out of Reach

California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a Second Amended Complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina, alleging new wrongful conduct as part of what the complaint describes as a continuing fraudulent transaction scheme involving New DuPont, Corteva, Chemours, and DuPont's newest spinoff, Qnity Electronics. Bonta's office framed the filing bluntly, stating the DuPont defendants cannot game the system by illegally moving assets out of reach and calling it restructuring.

The core allegation is that the companies entered into a memorandum of understanding designed to shift the overwhelming majority of PFAS-related liabilities onto Chemours — the entity in the corporate family with the least amount of assets — while limiting exposure for Corteva and New DuPont. The complaint further alleges that MOU was later amended to diminish Chemours' assets even more, by transferring insurance coverage elsewhere. If accurate, that sequence describes a liability-isolation strategy executed in stages, not a single restructuring event.

The legal theory extends back to 2015, when DuPont originally spun off its performance chemicals division — including its PFAS operations — into Chemours. Critics and plaintiff attorneys have long alleged that spinoff was structured specifically to separate DuPont's legacy PFAS liability from its core business while the newly created, thinner-capitalized Chemours entity absorbed the legal exposure. This amended complaint applies that same theory to DuPont's most recent corporate action: it asks the court to name Qnity Electronics, DuPont's newest spinoff, as a defendant and to void the underlying business transfers.

Naming a brand-new spinoff in litigation built around an 11-year-old restructuring is a signal California's case has evolved from disputing what happened in 2015 to arguing DuPont has continued the same liability-shifting pattern with every subsequent corporate separation since — a materially broader legal theory than the original PFAS contamination claims the litigation started with.