Newsletter 57

Newsletter 57 – Jan-Feb 2016

Greetings from your ad-hoc group.

A preliminary meeting was held 21.01.16 in view the unavailability of the full ad-hoc group. Present were Pierre Chaigneau, Georges Darrer, Denis Hill, Ed Peter and Peter Taylor.

Our purpose was to review the developments of the sweeping management changes at E.I.DuPont de Nemours and the announcement of a merger with The Dow Chemical Company followed by dismemberment of the new Company into three separate entities. It is not clear at this point which DuPont businesses would be in what entity.

The bottom line appears to be that the 200 year-old DuPont we worked for and trusted, that provided for many inventions, industrial or consumer products and valued brands is in an accelerating dissolution phase. Current employees are already losing their jobs across the globe.

The good news, if you will, is that in this terrible storm, retirees under the umbrella of the “Fondation de prévoyance en faveur du personnel de Du Pont de Nemours International S.A.” are relatively assured of the acquired pension rights by Swiss and Genève laws, as stated in its Statutes and the decree of September 1st 1986 by the State and based on Swiss Federal law. Accordingly, the acquired rights of the beneficiaries are protected and the capital of the foundation and all ulterior contributions are irrevocably the foundation’s and cannot be returned to the founding company or used for anything else than the benefit of the retirees.

Any changes of the statutes must be approved by the “Autorité de Surveillance des Fondations” of Geneva. And this is the weak spot that we must monitor, back up and cultivate. In order to do this we should form an association to give more weight, focus and credibility to any intervention in defence of our rights. Possibly for also interfacing Cantonal and Federal authorities as well as other influential lobbies.

Your comments are welcome on (y)our web site www.xdisaweb.ch., particularly if you agree to participate in such an association.

A meeting with DISA management is scheduled for end February. Let us have any issues, comments or questions we should bring up with them.

Wishing you a better 2016 than was 2015. Stay alive and safe!

Your ad-hoc group.

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