Yellow Corp. Judge Plots Course to Resolve Pension Fund Claims

Yellow Corp.'s outstanding bankruptcy dispute over determining multiemployer pension fund withdrawal liability claims is on track to be resolved through litigation, but won’t stretch on until the end of the year.

Judge Craig T. Goldblatt of the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware said Tuesday that although he can’t decide how to value unsettled claims against Yellow without more information and an estimation hearing, a resolution won’t take six months like the trucking company has proposed.

“Six months seems like an extravagant amount of time to do this,” Goldblatt said at a status conference hearing. “We’re not going to boil the ocean to make things perfect.”

The New York State Teamsters Conference Pension and Retirement Fund and two other multiemployer pension plans haven’t been able to reach a new compromise with Yellow after Goldblatt rejected some of the company’s withdrawal liability settlements in early April.

The pension plans, which seek hundreds of millions of dollars in allowed claims against Yellow, had opposed the fallen trucking company’s plan to resolve the issue through litigation. They instead proposed that Goldblatt reconsider his decision or apply a 25% reduction to their claims, consistent with the methodology used to advance Yellow’s other pension deals.

But Goldblatt said he can’t do that absent Yellow’s consent to a new deal. He told the parties to see if they can reach an agreement on a timeline to conduct additional discovery and hold a new trial, otherwise he will set the schedule himself.

“That’s what feels fair and appropriate,” he said.

Yellow has spent nearly three years in bankruptcy resolving issues over its sudden collapse in 2023, including employee pension plan claims totaling more than $7.4 billion. Although it reached settlements with all 14 affected funds, Goldblatt denied a subset of the deals as unsupported by the proposed methodologies.

The company is represented by Kirkland & Ellis LLP and Pachulski Stang Ziehl & Jones LLP. The funds are represented by Sullivan Nimeroff Brown Hill LLC and Groom Law Group Chtd.

The case is In re Yellow Corp., Bankr. D. Del., No. 23-11069, hearing 6/9/26.