AUL Allows Advisers to Customize Revised Annual Plan Reviews
Earlier this year, AUL Retirement Services introduced a revised annual plan review for its clients and expanded the customization options for retirement plan advisers.
Financial advisers now have the opportunity to provide input at several data points throughout the document, including the exclusion or inclusion of data points. The new report assists with the identification of retirement education opportunities for plan participants, in-field training opportunities to show delivery options to advisers, and triggers more meaningful conversations, AUL said.
A comprehensive fiduciary check list and action plan to help guide a plan sponsor and act as documentation of key plan requirements.
A general compliance update section for both non-profit and for-profit plans provided by Indianapolis-based law firm Ice Miller.
Benchmarking against the industry to allow advisers and plan sponsors to make comparisons using unique, client-specific data.
A list of past period accomplishments using financial adviser and client input.
Advisers also have the opportunity to include their name and plan sponsor company logo on the front cover.
The report can be provided to the sponsor either by AUL or the plan’s financial adviser and annual plan reviews will be posted to AUL’s e-sponsor and e-producer Web sites for a rolling two-year period.
The new report was first rolled out to regional offices during a three week pilot group in the spring of 2010.
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According to a press release from plaintiff lead co-counsels Harwood Feffer LLP and Milberg LLP, an $8.2 million cash settlement has been proposed for a class action involving participants in the Boston Scientific Corporation 401(k) Retirement Savings Plan at any point between May 7, 2004 and January 26, 2006, inclusive.
According to the notice, plaintiffs’ law firms are “intending to move the Court to award attorneys’ fees from the Gross Settlement Fund in an amount not to exceed one-third (33⅓%) of the Gross Settlement Fund and for reimbursement of their expenses in the approximate amount of $475,000, plus interest on such expenses at the same rate as earned by the Settlement Fund.”The settlement indicates that they are also “intending to move the Court to award a payment of up to $10,000 to Named Plaintiff Edward Hazelrig, Jr. for his representation of the Proposed Class” from the settlement fund.
The settlement involved allegations made in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, in Hochstadt, et al. v. Boston Scientific Corp.In that case former employee Robert Hochstadt, who had been a lead plaintiff in another suit against the firm (along with Douglas Fletcher and Michael Lowe), but dropped out of the suit before a review by U.S. District Judge Joseph L. Tauro of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts resulted in a dismissal of that case (see Boston Scientific Wins Stock Drop Lawsuit ).
In dismissing the previous case, Judge Tauro ruled that because Fletcher and Lowe sold more stock than they purchased during the time period when they claimed the company’s stock price was artificially inflated, they likely were not financially injured by any potential misdeed by the employer and therefore, lacked constitutional standing
In the Hochstadt case, it had been alleged that plan fiduciaries breached their duties under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) by continuing to offer company stock as an investment option from the period May 7, 2004, to January 26, 2006, when the former employees claim the stock price was artificially inflated in light of company problems. The stock price went from a high of $45 per share during the class period to $20 per share at the end of the class period, according to the complaint (see New Company Stock Suit Filed against Boston Scientific).
According to the notice, “a hearing will be held before the Honorable Douglas P. Woodlock in the John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse, Courtroom 1, 1 Courthouse Way, Boston, Massachusetts 02210, at 2:30 p.m., on August 5, 2010 to determine whether the proposed settlement should be approved by the Court as fair, reasonable, and adequate, and to consider the proposed Plan of Allocation, the application of Plaintiffs’ Co-Lead Counsel for attorneys’ fees and reimbursement of expenses and the application for a case contribution award for the Named Plaintiff.”
The proposed settlement indicates that for active participants in the plan, their proportionate amount will be “allocated among the Participant’s investment options in accordance with the existing investment elections then in effect and treated thereafter for all purposes under the Plan as assets of the Plan properly credited to that Participant’s account,” noting that the participant may thereafter reallocate “his or her Final Individual Dollar Recovery if and as then permitted by the Plan”.
For former participants “who withdrew their accounts after the beginning of the Class Period but before the Effective Date of the Settlement”, terms of the settlement say that the trustee of the Plan will establish an account for each former Plan Participant, and each former Participant will be notified of such account along with further instructions.”