Happy Friday, readers! It’s been a busy few weeks for the U.S. Supreme Court in terms of rulings that will impact the retirement plan industry. There are also a number of additional pending cases that could have a dramatic impact on our space. With that in mind, we have compiled below some of our recent coverage of action at the Supreme Court. We hope you will share some of what you read with a client or colleague.
ERISA attorneys are grappling with the potential implications of the Supreme Court’s new ruling in Intel vs. Sulyma; some are speculating the growing use of electronic delivery methods for retirement plan disclosures may reduce the impact.
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The Supreme Court will weigh in on the question of whether an adequately funded pension that is not in immediate danger of insolvency could have wronged participants and breached ERISA in the selection of poorly performing investments offered by an affiliate company.
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Both the U.S. Solicitor and the Pension Rights Center argue that current funded status of a defined benefit (DB) plan is not a proper measure for whether the participants have a right to sue for breaches of fiduciary duties and prohibited transactions under ERISA.
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The high court decided that a court in Puerto Rico had no jurisdiction to order the seizure of property from Catholic entities in order to fulfill a court judgment to pay $4.7 million in pension benefits.
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Putnam had asked the high court whether the plaintiff or the defendant bears the burden of proof on loss causation under ERISA to determine “whether showing that particular investment options did not perform as well as a set of index funds selected by the plaintiffs with the benefit of hindsight, suffices as a matter of law to establish ‘losses to the plan.’”
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The plaintiff in the case asked the court to to answer “whether Dudenhoeffer’s ‘context-sensitive scrutiny of a complaint’s allegations’ can be met where a court” makes certain presumptions.
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Though retirement plans can allow individuals to self-certify that they qualify for a penalty-free coronavirus-related distribution, should the IRS discover otherwise during a future audit, a participant can be subject to substantial penalties.
The district court declined to rule on the reasonableness of comparing actively managed funds to passively managed index funds on a motion to dismiss, clearing the way for discovery and potentially a full trial.
