California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a Second Amended Complaint on August 6, 2026, in the existing PFAS lawsuit against New DuPont, Corteva, Chemours, and Qnity Electronics. Filed in the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, the complaint alleges new wrongful conduct in a continuing fraudulent transaction scheme. It asserts that the companies’ transactions violated the Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act and the Uniform Voidable Transactions Act and were designed to evade accountability for PFAS claims and liabilities through corporate restructuring and asset transfers.

Alleged transfers and restructuring

According to the complaint, the companies entered into a memorandum of understanding designed to shift the overwhelming majority of liabilities onto Chemours, which the complaint describes as having the least amount of assets, while limiting the liability of Corteva, New DuPont, and Qnity. The complaint further alleges that a recent amendment to the memorandum diminished Chemours’ assets by removing potentially important insurance coverage and transferring it elsewhere.

The complaint describes alleged transfers involving Old DuPont, formally E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company before 2017; New DuPont, created in June 2019; and Corteva. It alleges that, in 2025, Chemours assigned Corteva and New DuPont all of its rights to receive insurance proceeds related to PFAS liabilities in exchange for a lump sum worth less than half the estimated value of those proceeds. Chemours would receive a 50% share of additional proceeds after Corteva and New DuPont recouped the lump sum and a fee, while remaining responsible for indemnifying Corteva, Old DuPont, and New DuPont for PFAS liabilities above the $4 billion cap established by a 2021 agreement. The complaint also alleges that New DuPont continued divesting assets, including by spinning off its electronics business into Qnity, an independent, publicly traded company.

“The DuPont Defendants cannot game the system by illegally moving assets out of reach, dodging liabilities for the harm they have caused, and calling it restructuring,” Attorney General Bonta said. “I look forward to ensuring that these companies are held accountable for PFAS pollution and that their assets cannot be hidden behind corporate walls while their responsibilities are left behind.”

PFAS claims and requested relief

The underlying lawsuit, filed in November 2022, alleges that the manufacturers knew or should have known about the dangers of PFAS when they made or sold products containing the chemicals, failed to provide warnings, and in many cases concealed the dangers. The lawsuit concerns eight PFAS detected in California drinking water, surface waters, and groundwater, as well as air, soil, sediments, fish tissue, and other organisms:

  • Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS)
  • Perfluorobutanesulfonic acid (PFBS), perfluorohexanesulfonic acid (PFHxS), and perfluorohexanoic acid (PFHxA)
  • Perfluoroheptanoic acid (PFHpA), perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA), and hexafluoropropylene oxide dimer acid (HFPO-DA, also known as GenX)

The lawsuit seeks injunctive relief, damages, penalties, restitution, and abatement. Requested measures include statewide treatment and destruction of PFAS, treatment of water from regulated and unregulated systems and private wells, environmental testing, medical monitoring, public notification, replacement water, and safe disposal and destruction. The case is pending in multidistrict litigation in the District of South Carolina. The Attorney General also asks the court to bar New DuPont and Qnity from transferring proceeds from the sale of business lines, segments, divisions, or other assets formerly belonging to Old DuPont, or to impose a constructive trust over those proceeds.