The Fifth Circuit recently reversed a district court’s dismissal of claims that the fiduciaries of a 401(k) plan breached the duty of prudence under ERISA by offering participants retail share classes instead of cheaper...more
5/9/2024
/ 401k ,
Article III ,
Class Action ,
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) ,
Excessive Fees ,
Fees ,
Fiduciary ,
Investment ,
Recordkeeping Requirements ,
Retirement Plan ,
Reversal ,
Share Classes ,
Standing
Defense counsel frequently lament the difficulties of defending 401(k) investment and recordkeeping fee litigation when different judges render conflicting rulings on motions to dismiss seemingly indistinguishable...more
A federal district court judge in the Eastern District of Kentucky has enforced an ESOP’s arbitration clause, sending P.L. Marketing Inc. employees’ breach of fiduciary duty claims on behalf of a putative class to individual...more
11/7/2023
/ Breach of Duty ,
Class Arbitration ,
Defined Contribution Plans ,
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) ,
Enforcement ,
ESOP ,
Fiduciary Duty ,
Mandatory Arbitration Clauses ,
Prohibited Transactions ,
Putative Class Actions ,
Waivers
A recent Ninth Circuit decision has generated considerable controversy amongst employee benefits practitioners by holding that plan fiduciaries engaged in prohibited transactions when they amended the plan’s existing...more
9/22/2023
/ 401k ,
Benefit Plan Sponsors ,
Breach of Duty ,
Class Action ,
Compensation ,
Employee Benefits ,
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) ,
Fiduciary Duty ,
Investment Adviser ,
Real Party in Interest ,
Recordkeeping Requirements ,
Service Agreements
In a case of first impression in the Tenth Circuit, the Court recently joined the chorus of circuit courts in holding that a 401(k) plan participant alleging excessive investment management or recordkeeping fees must assert a...more
Two District Courts have reached conflicting decisions on the same day when ruling on substantially similar allegations that plan fiduciaries violated ERISA by paying too much for recordkeeping services, with one court...more
A third district court has dismissed with prejudice a complaint alleging that defendants breached their fiduciary duties under ERISA by offering 401(k) plan participants the option to invest in BlackRock LifePath Index Target...more
As plan sponsors and fiduciaries cope with the increased volume of class action Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) lawsuits, some have considered the prospects of reducing their exposure through arbitration...more
4/25/2023
/ ADEA ,
Arbitration ,
Benefit Plan Sponsors ,
Breach of Duty ,
Employee Benefits ,
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) ,
Enforcement ,
Federal Arbitration Act ,
Fiduciary Duty ,
Retirement Plan ,
SCOTUS
On remand from the U.S. Supreme Court, the Seventh Circuit issued its opinion in Hughes v. Northwestern University, concluding that participants in two Northwestern 403(b) plans plausibly pled fiduciary-breach claims based on...more
4/4/2023
/ 403(b) Plans ,
Breach of Duty ,
Class Action ,
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) ,
Excessive Fees ,
Fiduciary Duty ,
Hughes v. Northwestern University ,
Investment Management ,
Northwestern University ,
Pleading Standards ,
Recordkeeping Requirements ,
SCOTUS
A district court in the Southern District of Ohio and one in the Western District of Wisconsin reached opposite conclusions on motions to dismiss claims for fiduciary breach based on allegations that recordkeeping fees were...more
In a striking reversal of approach beginning in the summer of 2022, the District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin went from denying, in whole or in part, virtually every motion to dismiss ERISA lawsuits targeting...more
2/2/2023
/ 401k ,
403(b) Plans ,
Class Action ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Dismissals ,
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) ,
Fees ,
Hughes v. Northwestern University ,
Investment ,
Revenue Sharing ,
SCOTUS
A district court in New York recently dismissed a putative class action challenging retirement plan recordkeeping and investment management fees. The case is Singh v. Deloitte LLP, No. 21-cv-8458, 2023 WL 186679 (S.D.N.Y....more
1/25/2023
/ 401k ,
Dismissals ,
Duty of Prudence ,
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) ,
Excessive Fees ,
Fiduciary Duty ,
Investment Management ,
New York ,
Popular ,
Putative Class Actions ,
Recordkeeping Requirements ,
Retirement
In Krutchen v. Ricoh USA, No. 22-cv-678, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 206792 (E.D. Pa. Nov. 15, 2022), a Pennsylvania district court dismissed an ERISA excessive fee complaint for failing to provide enough information about alleged...more
In Matousek v. MidAmerican Energy Co., 2022 WL 6880771, __ F.4th __ (8th Cir. 2022), the Eighth Circuit joined the Sixth and Seventh Circuits in affirming dismissal of ERISA breach of fiduciary duty claims alleging that the...more
10/18/2022
/ 401k ,
403(b) Plans ,
Breach of Duty ,
Class Action ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Dismissals ,
Duty of Prudence ,
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) ,
ERISA Litigation ,
Fees ,
Fiduciary Duty ,
Investment ,
Recordkeeping Requirements
The Seventh Circuit recently provided a ray of sunshine in what has largely been a gloomy stretch for plan sponsors and fiduciaries defending ERISA breach of fiduciary duty claims based on allegedly excessive investment and...more
9/8/2022
/ 401k ,
Benefit Plan Sponsors ,
Breach of Duty ,
Class Action ,
Dismissals ,
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) ,
Fees ,
Fiduciary Duty ,
Hughes v. Northwestern University ,
Motion for Summary Judgment ,
SCOTUS
On August 17, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that a Department of Labor (“DOL”) advisory opinion, which found that an insurance plan was not governed by ERISA, was unenforceable under the...more
The Sixth Circuit, in a matter of first impression for that Circuit, held an arbitration clause contained in an individual employment agreement did not apply to ERISA fiduciary breach claims brought on behalf of a defined...more
5/5/2022
/ 401k ,
Arbitration ,
Arbitration Agreements ,
Breach of Duty ,
Contract Terms ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Defined Contribution Plans ,
Employee Benefits ,
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) ,
Employment Contract ,
Fiduciary Duty ,
First Impression ,
Investment ,
Statutory Violations
Albert Einstein is famously credited with saying, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." This adage comes to mind as defense counsel continue to resort to the same strategies for...more
4/28/2022
/ 401k ,
403(b) Plans ,
Compensation & Benefits ,
Defense Strategies ,
Employee Benefits ,
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) ,
Excessive Fees ,
Fiduciary Duty ,
Plausibility Standard ,
Retirement Plan ,
Share Classes
On Friday, for the second week in a row, the Ninth Circuit reversed dismissal of a 401(k) plan excessive fee litigation challenging the offering of retail share classes of mutual funds instead of cheaper institutional share...more
4/19/2022
/ 401k ,
Dismissals ,
Employee Benefits ,
Excessive Fees ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Investment Adviser ,
Mutual Funds ,
Retirement Plan ,
Reversal ,
Share Classes ,
Trader Joes
On Friday, the Ninth Circuit became the first circuit court to rule in a 401(k) plan fee and investment litigation following the Supreme Court’s January 2022 decision in Hughes v. Northwestern University, 142 S. Ct. 737...more
4/12/2022
/ 401k ,
Breach of Duty ,
Employee Benefits ,
Fees ,
Fiduciary Duty ,
Investment Management ,
Motion to Dismiss ,
Mutual Funds ,
Retirement Plan ,
Salesforce ,
Share Classes
In this episode of The Proskauer Benefits Brief, Myron D. Rumeld, partner and co-chair of Proskauer’s ERISA Litigation group and senior associate Tulio D. Chirinos, review the current state of affairs with respect to the...more
To the disappointment of many in the ERISA community, the Supreme Court issued a six-page opinion on January 24th that declined to opine on most of the issues that were before the Court in Hughes v. Northwestern University,...more
1/26/2022
/ 401k ,
403(b) Plans ,
Breach of Duty ,
Duty of Prudence ,
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) ,
Excessive Fees ,
Fiduciary Duty ,
Hughes v. Northwestern University ,
Plan Participants ,
Pleading Standards ,
Retirement Plan ,
Tibble v Edison Int ,
Vacated
A federal district court in New York recently granted Omnicom Group Inc.’s (“Omnicom’s”) motion to dismiss, for lack of Article III standing, claims challenging the offering of investment options in Omnicom’s 401(k) plan in...more
8/10/2021
/ 401k ,
Article III ,
Breach of Duty ,
Employee Benefits ,
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) ,
Fees ,
Fiduciary Duty ,
Investment Management ,
Investment Opportunities ,
Performance Standards ,
Retirement Plan ,
Standing
The Fifth Circuit affirmed the dismissal, for lack of standing, of a fiduciary breach representative action against American Airlines and its 401(k) plan investment committee. Ortiz v. American Airlines, Inc., No. 20-10817,...more
8/5/2021
/ 401k ,
American Airlines ,
Article III ,
Breach of Duty ,
Employee Benefits ,
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) ,
Fiduciary Duty ,
Investment Management ,
Investment Opportunities ,
Retirement Plan ,
Standing
One of the multitude of recent cases challenging the recordkeeping fees of 401(k) plans recently made its way to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. Ramos v. Banner Health, No. 20-1231, — F.3d —- (10th Cir. June 11, 2021). ...more