ATI Retirees’ Challenge to Pension De-Risking Move Looks Shaky

Specialty materials producer ATI Inc. inched closer to defeating litigation by former workers who say their retirement benefits were jeopardized when they were transferred off the company’s pension plan in exchange for annuities from a controversial insurer.

The ATI retirees lack standing to press their claims because they haven’t shown a reduction in their pension benefits or a high likelihood that their annuity provider will fail, Magistrate Judge Kezia O.L. Taylor said Tuesday in a nonbinding recommendation issued in the US District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania.

“Plaintiffs have been receiving their monthly payments just as they were ...