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Compliance June 17, 2025
UnitedHealth $69M Settlement Finalized
The complaint was originally filed in 2021 and spent three years in litigation before the settlement was reached at the end of 2024.
Reported by James Van Bramer
UnitedHealth Group settled for $69 million a case alleging the health care giant breached its duties to participants in its 401(k) plan and mismanaged participants’ retirement funds. A Minnesota judge finalized the settlement last week, according to a release by Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight LLP, which represented the plaintiffs.
The complaint was originally filed in 2021 and spent three years in litigation before the settlement was reached at the end of 2024.
The settlement intends to resolve claims that UnitedHealth mismanaged investments in the Wells Fargo Target Fund Suite, hurting more than 350,000 current and former participants in the plan.
“ERISA’s fiduciary standards are strict and exacting,” said Charles Field, a partner in and co-chair of Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight’s financial mismanagement and ERISA litigation practice group and counsel in the case, in a statement. The decision “underscores the fact that fiduciaries should be held to the highest standards in managing plan participants’ assets.”
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