PENSION PLANS AND RETIREMENT BENEFITS

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2022

Retirement Benefits [Abstract]

PENSION PLANS AND RETIREMENT BENEFITS

NOTE 16. PENSION PLANS AND RETIREMENT BENEFITS

We sponsor domestic and foreign defined benefit pension plans for eligible employees and retirees. Most of our domestic employees participate in defined contribution plans.  However, a portion of our bargaining hourly employees continue to participate in our domestic qualified defined benefit pension plans under a flat-benefit formula. Our funding policy for the qualified defined benefit pension plans is consistent with the requirements of federal laws and regulations. Our foreign subsidiaries maintain pension and other benefit plans, which are consistent with local statutory practices.

Our domestic qualified defined benefit pension plan provides that if, within three years following a change of control of Olin, any corporate action is taken or filing made in contemplation of, among other things, a plan termination or merger or other transfer of assets or liabilities of the plan, and such termination, merger, or transfer thereafter takes place, plan benefits would automatically be increased for affected participants (and retired participants) to absorb any plan surplus (subject to applicable collective bargaining requirements).

We also provide certain postretirement healthcare (medical) and life insurance benefits for eligible active and retired domestic employees. The healthcare plans are contributory with participants’ contributions adjusted annually based on medical rates of inflation and plan experience.

	Pension Benefits				Other Postretirement Benefits
	Three Months Ended March 31,				Three Months Ended March 31,
	2022		2021		2022		2021
Components of Net Periodic Benefit (Income) Cost	($ in millions)
Service cost	$	2.3	$	3.0	$	0.3	$	0.4
Interest cost	15.4		12.8		0.3		0.3
Expected return on plans’ assets	(34.2)		(36.1)		—		—
Amortization of prior service cost	(0.2)		(0.1)		—		—
Recognized actuarial loss	8.6		13.1		0.5		0.7
Net periodic benefit (income) cost	$	(8.1)	$	(7.3)	$	1.1	$	1.4

We made cash contributions to our international qualified defined benefit pension plans of $0.4 million and $0.1 million for the three months ended March 31, 2022 and 2021, respectively.