AT&T Retirees Seek to Combine Athene Pension Transfer Lawsuits

AT&T Inc. retirees asked a federal judge to consolidate two lawsuits challenging a transaction that shifted responsibility for funding nearly 100,000 pensions to a controversial insurance company.

The proposed class actions, both filed in March in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts, say AT&T offloaded more than $8 billion worth of pension benefits to subsidiaries of Athene Holding Ltd., which the retirees criticize as being overly risky and improperly connected to private equity. This transaction caused workers to lose the federal protections of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act and jeopardized their retirement savings, according to the ...