Attorney General Bonta Asks Court to Stop Fraudulent Corteva Corporate Spin-Off in “Forever Chemicals” Litigation

Files motion for temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction with bipartisan support from 20 states and nine major municipalities

OAKLAND — California Attorney General Rob Bonta, with the support of a bipartisan coalition of 20 attorneys general and nine major municipalities, today filed a motion for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction seeking to stop Corteva Inc. — now the parent company of the chemicals manufacturer historically known as DuPont — from trying to move $39 billion of its assets and value to avoid paying its liabilities. Attorney General Bonta recently filed a second amended complaint in his existing lawsuit alleging that some of the nation’s largest chemical companies, including Corteva and DuPont, shifted assets to avoid liability and failed to warn the public about the dangers of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, commonly referred to as PFAS or “forever chemicals.” Now, in the latest stage of this scheme, Corteva plans to spin off the bulk of its assets and value from DuPont (its subsidiary) into a new independent company called Vylor in order to insulate those assets from the financial consequences of causing decades of harm from forever chemicals that have contaminated groundwater, bays, lakes, streams, rivers, wildlife, soil, and communities in California and throughout the country. Tellingly, Corteva’s CEO and many of its board members are fleeing Corteva — the company liable for these harms — for Vylor, which they say will be free of PFAS liability. Absent appropriate guardrails, the impending Vylor spinoff transaction increases the risk that states and municipalities, and by extension taxpayers, will be left to shoulder the massive financial burdens arising from historical DuPont operations. Filed in the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, today’s motion seeks to freeze Corteva’s assets and stop its fraudulent attempt to avoid the consequences of its toxic legacy.

“If you’re confused by these corporate machinations, that’s exactly what these chemical companies intended. This family of chemical manufacturers has been constantly changing hats and engaging in a decades-long campaign of deception to evade accountability for the widespread damage they caused to our environment and public health,” said Attorney General Rob Bonta. “We will be dealing with PFAS for generations, and these companies need to pay for the harms they’ve inflicted on Californians and our environment. Today, we’re asking the court to immediately freeze Corteva’s assets to stop these companies’ efforts to avoid accountability. Nobody can hide from the law.”

“PFAS persist in the environment forever and present a clear public health risk. That’s why California continues to lead the way providing best-in-class science and research to protect our residents from these forever chemicals,” said Secretary for Environmental Protection Yana Garcia. “This lawsuit is proof that California will take aggressive steps to hold corporate polluters accountable for the harm that they have done and secure all available resources to clean up PFAS contamination.”

What Are PFAS?

PFAS are widely used in consumer products, including food packaging, cookware, clothing, carpets, shoes, fabrics, polishes, waxes, paints, and cleaning products, as well as in firefighting foams designed to quickly smother liquid fuel fires. These so-called “forever chemicals” are stable in the environment, resistant to degradation, persistent in soil, and known to leach into groundwater. PFAS have been found in the blood of nearly all Californians tested for these dangerous chemicals. Human exposure to PFAS can occur from contaminated air, water, soil, food, and consumer products. PFAS can cause adverse health impacts, including developmental defects, liver, kidney, testicular, breast, pancreatic, and prostate cancers, adverse pregnancy outcomes, infertility, reduced bone density in children, and impacts on the thyroid and immune system.

For decades, PFAS manufacturers, including DuPont, were aware of these chemicals’ toxicity, persistence, and prevalence in humans, but chose to deliberately mislead the government and the public. For example, as early as the 1950s, companies began testing the physiological and toxicological properties of PFAS. Based on these internal studies, the manufacturers knew that PFAS were toxic to humans and the environment. By the 1960s, the manufacturers had confirmed that PFAS were leaching into groundwater and contaminating the environment, and by the 1970s, they had confirmed that PFAS bioaccumulate in humans. Rather than warn or change their products, DuPont doubled down, continuing to use PFAS in its products without warning the public or regulators for decades.

What Is Happening?

Attorney General Bonta recently filed a second amended complaint in his existing lawsuit against some of the nation’s largest chemical companies, alleging new wrongful conduct as part of the continuing fraudulent scheme that the historical DuPont, its successor New DuPont, Corteva, Chemours, and the recently created Qnity Electronics (together, the “DuPont Defendants”) engaged in. The amendment builds on Attorney General Bonta’s November 2022 lawsuit alleging that the manufacturers knew or should have known about the dangers of PFAS when they made and/or sold products containing them and that the manufacturers failed to warn the public and regulators about the dangers of PFAS, and in many cases concealed them.

To protect their assets from the many legitimate claims against them by those harmed by PFAS, the DuPont Defendants developed a complex, multi-step strategy to protect profits and reduce assets available to plaintiffs by selling assets and paying the proceeds to shareholders, leaving the public to deal with the environmental damage and serious health effects. Each step was designed to shield the DuPont Defendants’ assets from judgment:

2015 Spin-off: The historical DuPont created a new company called Chemours and transferred its chemical business to it. DuPont tried to shift its massive PFAS liabilities onto Chemours to protect its own profitable business units from legal claims.
2017 Merger: DuPont merged with The Dow Chemical Company to form a temporary company named DowDuPont. This move was designed to protect DuPont’s remaining product lines.
2019 Corporate Splits: DowDuPont broke apart into new companies. Corteva was formed to handle the agricultural business (holding the original DuPont as a subsidiary), while Dow, Inc. took over its performance materials business. DowDuPont was renamed DuPont (“New DuPont”) to quietly sell off DuPont’s remaining assets and give the cash to shareholders.
2021 Financial Cap: The DuPont Defendants signed a cost-sharing agreement to pay for legacy PFAS claims, but New DuPont and Corteva capped their combined contribution at $2 billion. Chemours also capped its contribution at $2 billion. This limit of $4 billion is extremely low given the companies’ role in PFAS deception and pollution, the number and size of the legal claims against them, and their assets. Once the $4 billion limit is reached, Chemours will be legally forced to cover all remaining PFAS liabilities on its own, even though Chemours is the DuPont Defendant with the least amount of assets.
2025 Insurance Agreement: Corteva and New DuPont paid Chemours $150 million to gain control over Chemours’ insurance payouts for PFAS damage. After Corteva and New DuPont recover that initial $150 million, Chemours will only receive half of any future insurance money, despite still being responsible for paying out the massive legal claims DuPont foisted upon it.
Now: On October 1, 2026, Corteva plans to spin off its highly profitable seed business into a new company called Vylor. Meanwhile, it intends to leave all its legacy PFAS liabilities behind with its pesticides division, the only remaining business line left with Corteva. If this corporate split happens as planned, Corteva will repeat the exact same pattern as New DuPont: It will severely diminish its total assets, lower its overall business value, and send billions of dollars out of reach of PFAS-related plaintiffs, like California and thousands of others.

In filing this motion, Attorney General Bonta is joined by the attorneys general of Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia, along with the City of Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, the City of San Diego, the City and County of San Francisco, Santa Clara County, the City of Fresno, the City of Denver, the City of Philadelphia, and King County, Washington.

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