McKesson Defends Payments as Rite Aid Seeks Bankruptcy Clawback

McKesson Corp. challenged Rite Aid’s effort to unwind tens of millions of dollars in payments that the bankrupt chain called “preferential.”

The transfers, occurring around the same day in May that Rite Aid filed for bankruptcy, can’t be clawed back because they weren’t unauthorized prepayments for goods that would be later shipped, the pharmaceutical distributor said in an Aug. 15 filing in the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey.

The payments were “in the amount of the outstanding invoices then due and owing to McKesson under the 10-day payment terms” of an agreement that had been in effect since Rite Aid emerged from a previous Chapter 11 in October 2023, McKesson said.

Even if a court decides the transfers are preferential, McKesson said it would be entitled to a $49.7 million setoff against its more than $130 million administrative claim for products delivered in the weeks leading up to the bankruptcy filing.

Rite Aid sued McKesson, its largest drug supplier, in early August over three transfers that it said were “unusual, non-ordinary course” payments.

The relationship between the drug supplier and Rite Aid had been established with daily payments and deliveries since the agreement went into effect, McKesson said.

“Several billion dollars of products” were delivered and paid for “at a rate of tens of millions of dollars per day,” the company said in the filing.

Rite Aid’s May bankruptcy came less than a year after it emerged from its previous Chapter 11 case, saying it was overburdened by business costs and would close or sell its stores using funding from existing lenders.

Sidley Austin LLP, McManimon, Scotland & Baumann LLC, and Buchalter PC represent McKesson. Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP and Cole Schotz PC represent Rite Aid.

The case is In re: New Rite-Aid LLC, Bankr. D.N.J., No. 25-14861, reply 8/15/25.