February 18, 2026
Cohen Milstein’s benefits team struck a $14.75 million deal with Citgo to end an outdated mortality data suit and secured a $7.9 million settlement in a 401(k) mismanagement case, earning the firm a place among the 2025 Law360 Benefit Groups of the Year.
Circular dark blue and white badge with a white icon at the top, light gray numbers at the upper left, and stacked uppercase lettering in white and dark blue arranged in horizontal bandsMichelle Yau, who chairs Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC’s employee benefits and ERISA practice group, pointed to the $7.9 million settlement her team secured with George Weiss Associates Inc. that was finalized in September 2025 as one of the practice group’s most impressive achievements of the year.
She chose it not only because the recovery was so strong — class members walked away with whopping individual payouts estimated at an average of $26,000 each — but because she had never before dealt with the mix of allegations at play.
A class of retirees accused the hedge fund and owner George A. Weiss of not only investing their savings into risky funds, but also of funneling 100% of its employees’ retirement savings into its proprietary funds, which Yau said created an unprecedented mix of mismanagement, diversification and self-dealing issues.
As the case was being litigated, the hedge fund and its owner also declared bankruptcy. This created another challenge for Yau and her team — having to go before the bankruptcy court in order to ensure her clients saw a recovery. Ultimately, she said, she successfully convinced a judge that her clients deserved payment under an insurance policy, amid other creditors also seeking payment.
“I appeared before two different bankruptcy judges explaining what our claims were and how we needed to preserve them for the class,” Yau said. “To state the obvious, I’m not a bankruptcy lawyer. But I definitely feel like after this experience, I could at least play one on TV.”
Yau also highlighted her clients’ $14.75 million recovery, finalized in January 2025, in a class action claiming Citgo Petroleum Corp. shorted retirees on benefit payouts by using outdated mortality data from the 1970s to calculate how much they were owed. This incorrect data informed how Citgo converted retirees’ single life annuity benefits to joint and survivor annuity benefits, which would provide payments to a retiree’s spouse in the event of their death, the retirees claimed.
Those who retired within six years of the lawsuit’s filing recovered 87% of their estimated losses — double the highest recovery rate secured in any similar mortality data case so far, the firm said. Yau said this outcome was particularly rewarding because while the claims behind the case were fairly simple, the math used to assess the pension calculations is complicated and difficult for the average worker to sort out on their own.
“I personally, and my team, feel very comfortable fighting through the numbers to see how retirees are getting underpaid, and then proving that to the court if need be,” Yau said. “I think that’s why these cases are so meaningful to us, because we can see clear as day the underpayment.”
Yau said her team, as demonstrated in the Citgo case, doesn’t bluff when they prepare for trial in these complex ERISA cases. The class struck a deal with Citgo just weeks before the case was set to go to a bench trial. Yau said she thinks the strength of the settlements the benefits practice group has been able to secure for her clients is the direct result of her team’s commitment to try these cases in an area of law where trials don’t often take place.
That commitment also sets Cohen Milstein’s benefits group apart from its competitors, she said.
“We just work harder than anyone else,” Yau said. “We leave everything out on the field.”