Repeating a number of excessive fee lawsuits filed, the complaint says the defendants did not try to “reduce the plan’s expenses or exercise appropriate judgment to scrutinize each investment option that was offered in the plan to ensure it was prudent.”
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.
Fund mismanagement, excessive recordkeeping fees and improper fees to Financial Engines were among allegations in the original complaint.
A court disagreed with plaintiffs that CIGNA was not following orders when calculating remedies in the case, and the court has now denied a review of that decision.
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.'”
The plaintiffs say defendants failed to utilize the lowest cost share class for many of the mutual funds within the plan, and failed to consider collective trusts, commingled accounts, or separate accounts as alternatives to the mutual funds in the plan, despite their lower fees.
A judge previously found eliminating ESOP participants’ right to invest in company stock is not a violation of ERISA’s anti-cutback provisions, but forcing participants with balances greater than $5,000 out of the plan may be.
403(b) plan sponsors need help understanding their fiduciary duties, reviewing plan investment lineups and benchmarking fees.
Case documents note the settlement has only been reached after “extensive litigation, lengthy discovery and protracted arm’s-length negotiations with the assistance of a national mediator.”
Employees of the grocery chain accuse their employer of acting imprudently in the selection of retirement plan investment options and of failing to monitor the services and fees paid.
The motion cites as one reason for settlement “probable costs, in both time and money, of continued litigation.”
The plaintiffs are concerned the combination of the two largest custodian companies in the U.S. will harm independent wealth managers as well as consumers, due to decreased competition in an already concentrated marketplace.
A new lawsuit filed against Ardent Health Services closely mirrors many of the ERISA challenges filed in 2019.
M&T Bank or its insurers will also pay a gross settlement amount of $20,850,000 into a common fund for the benefit of class members.
With regard to “improper selection and monitoring of plan service providers,” the lawsuit specifically names a broker/dealer representative whom it says was terminated in 2014 for “failure to follow firm policies and industry regulations.”
The university argues that other courts would have required more than an appellate court did in its lawsuit to state a plausible claim.
Among other allegations, the national work uniform provider is accused of permitting high-cost mutual funds to persist on the retirement plan menu while cheaper but otherwise identical funds were available.
Among other things, the archdiocese of Newark was accused of filing for "church plan" status to avoid having to fund the pension plan of hospital employees.
While not divided across political lines, the parties in Sulyma v. Intel Corporation Investment Policy Committee view the question of what establishes “actual knowledge” of an alleged fiduciary breach under ERISA very differently.