Plaintiffs include in their complaint a substantial amount of backward-looking fund performance data to underpin their failure to monitor claims, comparing the Home Depot offerings to others that could have been purchased.
The ruling to consolidate the cases and allow them to proceed comes just about a week after the parties appeared for a hearing before the court, considering twin motions for dismissal and summary judgement.
Following extensively detailed deliberation citing important SCOTUS rulings and other precedents, the district court ruling rejects a multiemployer plan’s usage of the so-called “Segal Blend” to set the discount rate for assessing a member's withdrawal liability.
Plaintiffs suggested plan fiduciaries permitted excessive fees to be paid, leading to improper provider kickbacks; a district court judge has summarily dismissed the allegations for failing to state an actionable claim.
Plaintiffs argue it was inappropriate to allow three recordkeepers to supply the plans with a separate menu of investment choices, including mutual fund share classes that charged higher fees than other alternatives that offered the same investment strategies or less expensive share classes of the exact same investment fund—or both.
The number of Employee Retirement Income Security Act lawsuits winning class certification in 2017 far outstripped the number of suits within which class action status was denied; attorneys with Seyfarth Shaw offer detailed analysis of all the ongoing cases.
The underlying lawsuit will proceed and will test whether the firm acted imprudently or disloyally in discharging its discretionary fiduciary authority when including its own affiliated investment products in its internal retirement plan.
The class-action suit had accused the company of making statements to artificially inflate Eaton’s stock.
The settlement includes $12 million in monetary contributions, along with mandated administrative changes and the appointment of an independent monitor for the investment lineup.
The lawsuit alleged that defendants’ conduct cost plaintiffs and the proposed class millions of dollars needlessly expended on excessive fees and costs; however, in a short but informative opinion, a judge has ruled the proposed class of plaintiffs lacks standing.
In their lawsuit, the plaintiffs called the Fujitsu plan one of the most expensive in the country and specifically called out the design and implementation of the plan’s custom target-date funds.
The richly detailed text of the complaint shows multiple individuals are accused of defrauding Great-West and depositing ill-gotten assets in a variety of U.S. banks, resulting in fraud and money laundering charges.
Siding with the district court, the 3rd Circuit ruled simply that “plan participant bargaining power … is not a substantive element of a top-hat plan.”