Tag: Participant Lawsuits

At the heart of the complaint were guaranteed investment contracts, a type of group annuity contract sold to retirement plans, issued by Principal to ERISA-covered retirement plan participants.

Echoing its original ruling, the district court’s second take concludes the lead plaintiff’s underlying allegations do not provide “more than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully.”

Beyond the nearly $22 million in monetary terms, the settlement agreement includes substantial prospective relief to be provided by Deutsche Bank.

In this case, the alleged knowledge of an artificially high stock price was rooted in the fact that the company had not disclosed that employees of its foreign subsidiaries had violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1997 by paying bribes to foreign government officials.

After siding with defendants and applying the shorter of two potential limitations periods, the district court decision states clearly that plaintiff’s claims are foreclosed by ERISA's three-year statute of limitations; the detailed decision tackles head-on a complex set of precedent-setting cases, including Tibble vs. Edison. 

Under the paradigm created by the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case known as Fifth-Third v. Dudenhoeffer, plaintiffs continue to have difficulty proving standing in ERISA stock drop cases.

Considering a second amended complaint much broader than the original, a district court has once again rejected allegations by participants in a Ford Motor Company retirement plan that Xerox HR Solutions, the recordkeeper, violated the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.

In a detailed ruling, the Deutsche Bank defendants’ motion for summary judgment is granted with respect to certain prohibited transaction claims, but denied with respect to other breach of fiduciary duty claims.

In a complicated complaint filed in federal district court, participants in Invesco’s retirement plan say they have been subject to disloyal and imprudent decisions made by conflicted plan officials.

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.