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.
Read more >
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.
Read more >
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.
Read more >
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.
Read more >
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.’”
Read more >
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.
Read more >
The actuarial update is important for plan sponsor clients to note, but the effect to regular business is likely limited, as the individuals most affected are likely no longer employed by the plan sponsor.
Among his accomplishments, Barry won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary, although he misplaced it for several years, which is why his wife now keeps it in a secure location that he does not know about.
One fiduciary insurance expert who has long been tracking ERISA litigation says a spate of new complaints filed in recent weeks are the ‘most outrageous’ the industry has ever seen.
Because different provisions are included in the House and Senate versions of the ambitious retirement reform legislation, a reconciliation process is likely in store.
Unlike many other ERISA lawsuits, the complaints suggest the plan fiduciaries in question should have considered more expensive target-date funds that might have performed better.
