Opinion ID: 3018977
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Merger and Divestiture

Text: On November 30, 1999, the Federal Trade Commission approved the Mobil / Exxon merger, subject to divestitures of various Mobil assets and other conditions. Exxon Mobil was created on December 1, 1999. Also on December 1, 1999, Mobil agreed to sell its Mid-Atlantic Marketing division, in which Plaintiffs worked, to Tosco Corporation. Tosco agreed to offer jobs with comparable or improved salaries and benefits to all of Mobil’s Mid-Atlantic Marketing employees. Id. at . Mobil announced the divestiture of its Mid-Atlantic Marketing division on December 2, 1999. At an employee meeting that day, Mobil management discussed the divestiture 10 and explained that all affected employees would be offered employment with Tosco. At the same time, management advised Tier 4 employees that they would not be entitled to severance benefits because they had been divested and would receive comparable employment offers. In subsequent meetings, Plaintiffs expressed surprise that they would not be offered severance benefits and complained that Mobil had changed the terms of the CIC Plan. Mobil management responded by distributing copies of relevant questions and answers from Mobil’s internal website and the divestiture provision of the actual CIC Plan, which clearly established Plaintiffs’ non-eligibility. Id. at . In February of 2000, Mobil distributed a notice of errata in the SPD, which acknowledged that the Initial SPD had omitted the divestiture provision and clarified the conditions for eligibility for benefits under the CIC Plan, as follows: The following text was omitted from the Mobil Corporation Employee Severance plan Summary for U.S. employees in salary groups 19 and below, distributed to all employees in those salary groups in August, 1999. Please keep this with your Summary for future reference. 11 This bullet belongs on page 5 and should be included as an additional reason one is not eligible to participate in the CIC retention/severance package: • you are no longer employed by the Company or an Affiliate due to a divestiture of any facility or sale or outsourcing of any business and are offered comparable employment by the purchaser or successor of such facility or business, regardless of whether you accept or reject the employment. Id. Plaintiffs’ employment with Mobil was officially terminated between March and May of 2000. The District Court found that each Plaintiff was offered employment with Tosco on terms comparable to his or her employment with Mobil. After the divestiture, Plaintiffs received the same salaries and benefits, and generally reported to the same supervisors, as they had before the divestiture. According to the District Court, 12 No Plaintiff who accepted a position with Tosco missed any work between the date he or she left Mobil and the date he or she began working for Tosco. Moreover, there was no break in any Plaintiffs’ [sic] health care coverage from the date he or she left Mobil until he or she started at Tosco. Id. at  (citations omitted).