If settlement can't be reached, the regulator has indicated its Determinations Panel should hear the cases for all three schemes at the same time, likely to be in the second half of 2016 at the earliest, it said.
The company's obligations to its retirement schemes stood at $286 million as at December 31, down from $326 million a year earlier, according to the its 2015 financial statements.
Coats' 2015 revenue was US$1.49 billion, from US$1.56 billion a year earlier, including the unprofitable EMEA Crafts business, which was sold at a loss of US$75.5 million. Group operating profit rose to US$139.4 million from US$123.4 million.
The company plans to delist from the NZX and ASX on June 24, leaving its shares tradable only on the London Stock Exchange.
UK shareholders own more than 70 per cent of the stock of Coats, which previously owned a portfolio of investments in Australia and New Zealand.
The company also gave an update of potential liabilities over the pollution of New Jersey's Lower Passaic River. Exceptional costs before tax and discontinued items of US$23 million included US$6.4 million for US environmental costs in the first half, including a provision for remedial work on the river.
Its Coats and Clark unit is among companies that the US Environmental Protection Agency has advised have potential responsibility for "certain historical environmental costs for the Lower Passaic River", which amount to US$1.7 billion based on the EPA's preferred remedy, Coats said.
Coats, which is one of about 70 companies in a cooperating parties group, said it doesn't believe Coats and Clark's predecessors generated the contaminants that polluted the river.
It also says it has valid legal defences, is a de minimis, or minor party, and that other parties will emerge who should bear a significant share of the costs.
Still there was a risk the EPA enforced its current remedial plan, which could force Coats to take more and larger provisions, it said.
Coats shares closed up 3.5c yesterday at 51c.
