TJOFLAT, Circuit Judge:

Under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 ("ERISA"), 88 Stat. 829, 29 U.S.C. §§ 1001-1461 (2006), an employer that has created and maintains a defined benefit pension plan for its employees must fund the plan as dictated by 29 U.S.C. § 1082(a).1 If the employer responsible for maintaining the plan—referred to in ERISA as a "contributing sponsor"2—is a member of a "controlled group," the employer and the other members of the controlled group are jointly and severally liable for funding the plan. 29 U.S.C. § 1082(b).3 A "controlled group" is defined as an organization or individual that is under common control with at least one other organization or individual. 29 U.S.C. § 1304(a)(14).4

Title IV of ERISA establishes a pension benefit insurance program that guarantees that pension plan beneficiaries will receive their basic nonforfeitable benefits in the event that the employer that created the pension plan is unable to pay pension benefits when due. 29 U.S.C. §§ 1321-22.5 The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (the "PBGC")—a government corporation within the Department of Labor—is responsible for administering and enforcing the insurance program. 29 U.S.C. § 1302(a). Under ERISA, an employer that has created a defined benefit plan for its employees must also pay premiums to the PBGC to fund the insurance program as the contributing sponsor. 29 U.S.C. § 1307. Like the minimum-funding provision, if the employer is a member of a controlled group, all members of the controlled group are jointly and severally liable for any premiums. 29 U.S.C. 1307(e)(2). In the event that the contributing sponsor can no longer pay benefits when they are due, the PBGC is authorized to terminate the plan, 29 U.S.C. § 1342, and to demand that the contributing sponsor and the members of the controlled group provide for the unfunded benefit liabilities, 29 U.S.C. § 1362.

This case presents a question of first impression: whether under ERISA the trustee of a corporation that is a contributing sponsor and is in bankruptcy can maintain an action for the benefit of the bankruptcy estate and the estate's unsecured creditors against the corporation's former owner (as a former member of the controlled group) for liabilities arising from the termination of a pension plan. For the reasons set out below, we hold that the answer is no.

This opinion proceeds in four parts. Part I presents the facts giving rise to this appeal. Part II recounts the procedural history of the case. In part III, we resolve an objection to our jurisdiction to consider this appeal. Finally, in part IV, we explain why a corporate employer undergoing bankruptcy reorganization cannot pursue an action for the benefit of its bankruptcy estate, and thus its unsecured creditors, against the employer's former owner for liabilities arising from the termination of a pension plan. A brief conclusion follows.

I.

In January 1999, H.G. Estate, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company, organized Gilman Paper Company (the "PAPER COMPANY") under Georgia law and became its sole shareholder. Once organized, the PAPER COMPANY acquired a paper mill in St. Marys, Georgia, and created a defined benefit plan for its employees and former employees.6 Under 29 U.S.C. §§ 1082(b)(2) and 1307, the PAPER COMPANY, H.G. Estate, LLC, the Howard Gilman Foundation, Gilman Converting Corporation, and Gilman Converting, LLC became a controlled group and thus were liable for funding the pension plan and for paying insurance premiums to the PBGC.7 In December 1999, H.G. Estate, LLC sold all of its shares of the PAPER COMPANY, Gilman Converting Corporation and Gilman Converting, LLC to Durango Paper Company, a corporation and a wholly owned subsidiary of Corporation Durango, also a corporation, for nearly $120 million. The transaction was facilitated by Bank of America Securities, LLC. By operation of law, those entities assumed the controlled group positions previously occupied by H.G. Estate, LLC and the Howard Gilman Foundation and thus became liable for funding the PAPER COMPANY's pension plan and for paying insurance premiums to the PBGC.8

In July 2002, the PAPER COMPANY decided to close its mill. In September, the mill ceased production. On October 7, 2002, Operadora Omega Internacional, a corporation, acquired 100 percent of the shares of Durango Paper Company from Corporation Durango and assumed its role as a member of the controlled group.9 By the end of the month, the PAPER COMPANY had closed its mill and fired nearly all of its employees.

On October 29, 2002, the PAPER COMPANY's creditors successfully petitioned the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Georgia for relief under Chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code.10 The next month, the PAPER COMPANY moved the Bankruptcy Court to transform the Chapter 7 case into a Chapter 11 proceeding in order to reorganize the company.11 The court granted its motion.

In June 2005, while the Chapter 11 case was pending, the PBGC brought an action against the PAPER COMPANY in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia to terminate the pension plan. In the context of ERISA's Title IV, termination "generally refers to the cessation of Title IV coverage including the system of insured guaranteed benefits." Lee T. Polk, ERISA Practice and Litigation § 10:44 (2013).12 The parties subsequently agreed that the plan should be terminated, and on October 31, 2006, the District Court entered an order terminating the plan as of March 1, 2004. As a result of the involuntary termination, the PAPER COMPANY and members of its controlled group as of March 1, 2004, became liable to the PBGC for unpaid benefit liabilities. See 29 U.S.C. § 1362.13 The PBGC thereafter filed a claim in the Chapter 11 case for termination liability in the amount of $55 million—the amount it estimated that the PAPER COMPANY would need if it were to fund the pension plan sufficiently to satisfy all of the beneficiaries' claims in full.14

II.

On August 18, 2010, the liquidating trustee of the PAPER COMPANY's bankruptcy estate ("Trustee") sued H.G. Estate, LLC, the Howard Gillman Foundation, and W.O. Corporation15 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia16 in an effort to recover for the bankruptcy estate the amount of the claim that the PBGC filed against the estate in the Chapter 11 case.17 The Trustee alleged that H.G. Estate, LLC, the Howard Gillman Foundation, and W.O. Corporation were jointly and severally liable with the PAPER COMPANY under 29 U.S.C. § 1369 as members of the former controlled group.18 Specifically, the Trustee alleged that H.G. Estate, LLC sold its shares of the PAPER COMPANY with a principal purpose of evading the liability that would have been imposed against it and the members of the former controlled group under 29 U.S.C. § 1362 in the event that the PBGC had terminated the pension plan while H.G. Estate, LLC still owned the PAPER COMPANY. As relief, the Trustee sought a "judgment in equity for indemnification, exoneration, or contribution... in an amount not less than the amount paid or payable to the PBGC by Plaintiff arising out of termination of the Pension Plan."

H.G. Estate, LLC moved the District Court to dismiss the Trustee's complaint for failure to state a claim for relief. On September 29, 2011, the court granted its motion on the ground that the relief sought did not constitute equitable relief—rather, it was for a money judgment19—and entered a final judgment for H.G. Estate, LLC and is codefendants. The Trustee appeals the District Court's decision. We affirm.

III.

Before turning to the merits of the Trustee's appeal, we must address H.G. Estate, LLC's objection to our jurisdiction to consider the appeal. If we lack jurisdiction to entertain the appeal, we must dismiss it. See Mathis v. Zant, 903 F.2d 1368, 1372-73 (11th Cir.1990). H.G. Estate, LLC contends that we lack jurisdiction because the District Court's September order was not a final decision. We disagree. As indicated in note 17, supra, the District Court finally disposed of all of the claims before it, leaving nothing to be decided. We thus have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291.20 We now turn to the merits of this appeal.

IV.

We begin and end our consideration of the merits of the Trustee's appeal by addressing an issue the District Court did not decide—whether the Trustee has a cause of action under 29 U.S.C. § 1369.21 We conclude that it does not.

Under § 1369, if "any person" sells the shares of its corporation in order to evade termination liability under 29 U.S.C. § 1362, "then such person and the members of such person's controlled group ... shall be subject to liability" under § 1362 "as if such person were a contributing sponsor of the terminated plan as of the termination date." 29 U.S.C. § 1369. For purposes of these statutory provisions, H.G. Estate, LLC is "any person" and it—together with the PAPER COMPANY, the Howard Gillman Foundation, Gillman Converting Corporation, and Gillman Converting, LLC—was a member of the controlled group for the PAPER COMPANY in December 1999, when H.G. Estate, LLC sold its shares of the PAPER COMPANY to Durango Paper Company. If, as the Trustee alleges in its complaint, H.G. Estate, LLC sold the shares for "a principal purpose ... to evade" its § 1362 liability in the event the PBGC terminated the pension plan, then H.G. Estate, LLC and the other members of the former controlled group would be treated as if they were members of the controlled group at the time of the plan's termination on March 1, 2004. Such a determination would mean that H.G. Estate, LLC, the Howard Gilman Foundation, and W.O. Corporation would be jointly and severally liable with the current members of the controlled group—Durango Paper Company, Durango-Georgia Converting Corporation, Durango-Georgia Converting, LLC, and Operadora Omega Internacional—for the unfunded benefit liabilities owed under 29 U.S.C. § 1362.

Because we are reviewing the dismissal of the Trustee's complaint for failure to state a claim, we accept the Trustee's allegation as true. The question is whether the joint and several liability under § 1369 runs to the PAPER COMPANY or to the pension plan's beneficiaries and the PBGC—which serves as the plan's insurer and trustee, and which in those roles submitted a claim to the Bankruptcy Court for insurance proceeds it paid to the plan's beneficiaries and the uninsured portions of the benefits due to the beneficiaries under the plan.

We read the Trustee's complaint as alleging that H.G. Estate, LLC (and thus the two other former members of the PAPER COMPANY's controlled group) breached a duty owed to the PAPER COMPANY and that the Trustee has brought suit on behalf of the PAPER COMPANY's bankruptcy estate and the PAPER COMPANY'S unsecured creditors.22 Indeed, the complaint represents that if the Trustee fails to recover on its $55 million claim against the former controlled group, the bankruptcy estate, lacking the $55 million, will amount to not more than $15 million from the sale of the debtors' assets, of which the Trustee would distribute to the PBGC approximately $8.25 million, or 55 percent of the sale proceeds. As we read the complaint, any money the Trustee recovers will go to the bankruptcy estate to be allocated among all of the general unsecured creditors, including the PBGC.23

We find nothing in ERISA's provisions or its legislative history suggesting, much less stating outright, that the duty of a current or former controlled group to pay unfunded benefit liabilities is a duty owed to the employer as contributing sponsor, rather than to the plan's beneficiaries. Indeed, the legislative history suggests the exact opposite. The House Report describing the most recent relevant amendments to Title IV of ERISA speaks in terms of ensuring that plan beneficiaries receive that to which they are entitled. The report states that § 1369—with its imposition of predecessor liability—was enacted "to protect the [PBGC's] insurance program from companies that transfer large amounts of unfunded benefits to a weaker company or that otherwise attempt to evade liability for their pension promises." H.R.Rep. No. 99-300, at 279 (1985), reprinted in 1986 U.S.C.C.A.N. 756, 930. Elsewhere, the report makes plain that "[i]n addition to transactions designed to evade liability to the PBGC, [§ 1369] also applies to any situations in which a principal purpose of a transaction is to evade liability to participants and beneficiaries for benefit entitlements." Id. at 304, 1986 U.S.C.C.A.N. at 955 (emphasis added).

Congress anticipated that, as part of the involuntary termination procedure, the PBGC will "carefully scrutinize transfers of unfunded pension liabilities from stronger to weaker companies" to determine if pursuing an action under 29 U.S.C. § 1369 is appropriate in a given situation. Id. In this case, the PBGC could have brought an action against members of the former controlled group for termination liability. It declined to do so.24 The Trustee cannot now seek a money judgment against that controlled group in favor of the bankruptcy estate and its unsecured creditors for liability that the PAPER COMPANY owes as contributing sponsor to the PBGC and the terminated plan's beneficiaries.25

* * *

ERISA's funding requirements were put in place for the benefit of plan beneficiaries, not for the protection of a bankrupt plan sponsor's unsecured creditors. The Trustee's complaint, because it was brought for the benefit of the bankrupt's unsecured creditors, fails to state a claim for relief. The judgment of the District Court is, accordingly,

AFFIRMED.