One of the tenets of this blog is that in a no-fault world divorce is a financial transaction heavily imbued with human emotion. The effective divorce lawyer tries to guide clients through this emotional process in a way that...more
The Department of Labor criticized Fidelity Investments’ plan to allow investors to put bitcoin in their 401(k) accounts....more
Fidelity Investments will allow investors to put bitcoin (BTC) into their 401(k) retirement savings accounts later this year....more
Just over a month ago, we wrote about the Department of Labor’s guidance on cryptocurrency as a 401(k) investment option, and the landscape has already shifted multiple times....more
Fidelity Investments recently announced that it will offer its 401(k) plan clients the opportunity to offer bitcoin as a 401(k) plan investment option later this year. While this may sound intriguing to some plan fiduciaries...more
Crypto seems to be everywhere these days. Just last week Fidelity Investments launched a bitcoin option for its 401(k) plans. The nation’s largest plan administrator is providing the 23,000 companies it manages retirement...more
A New York intermediate appellate court has held that an insured was entitled to coverage under its fidelity bond for over $141 million in losses it sustained after an independent broker used the insured’s electronic trading...more
Fidelity won a huge case. Schlichter, Bogard & Denton brought a lawsuit on behalf of four participants in Shell Oil Co.’s 401(k) plan. While the case focused on excessive fees, it alleged that the use of participant data...more
Donors make contributions to donor-advised funds (“DAFs”) for a variety of reasons. One is that DAF rules permit the donor to make the contribution in the current year (which entitles the donor to a deduction in that year),...more
In a much-anticipated [well, for some of us central bank nerds, at least] to the Economic Club of NY, Fed Chair Powell on Wednesday acknowledged that pent-up consumer demand unlocked by a big government stimulus package could...more
I always say that I come up with many ideas, but most of them are bad. Seriously, there are so many bad ideas out there in the 401(k) space and one of the really bad ideas out there are bundled plan providers using their own,...more
Fidelity Investments settled a class-action lawsuit regarding its own 401(k) plan for $28.5 million. The class-action case alleged that Fidelity breached its fiduciary responsibility to plan participants by including its...more
Shell Oil, along with Fidelity is the target of a class action 401(k) lawsuit. As typical with a suit against a large billion-dollar 401(k) plan, plaintiffs allege that Shell failed to use the multi-billion dollar 401(k)...more
Newly released minutes from the Fed’s January meeting show central bankers preoccupied with global risks, including the still-growing economic impact of the coronavirus, while still taking a wait-and-see approach to any...more
Amazon is a mover and shaker in e-commerce and they have a pretty large 401(k) plan now. As of the end of 2018, their 401(k) plan has almost $6 billion in assets....more
As part of an analysis, Fidelity Investments compared average asset allocations of participants to an age-based Target Date Fund and they found that nearly a quarter (23%) of 401(k) savers still have a higher percentage of...more
Several firms, including Investment Company Institute, BlackRock, Fidelity and Franklin, commented to the SEC concept where retail investors could gain greater exposure to growth-stage private companies through pooled...more
Senior negotiators from the U.S. and China will officially resume trade negotiations today, “with higher tariffs looming if [they] fail to break a five-month stalemate.” The U.S.’s moves this week to blacklist 28 Chinese tech...more
Kenny Roger’s “The Gambler” song has some great tips. You need to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, and know when to run. MIT wisely settled a class-action lawsuit concerning their...more
On June 18, 2019, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) adopted final amendments to Rule 2-01(c)(1)(ii)(A) of Regulation S-X (the “Loan Rule”) to clarify the analysis that must be conducted to determine whether an...more
On February 21, 2019, a participant in T-Mobile’s 401(k) plan sued the parent company of Fidelity Investments in federal District Court, accusing Fidelity of receiving indirect compensation through the use of a “hidden” fee...more
With Fidelity being under fire for “shelf space payments” from mutual fund companies to appear on their platform, it’s not surprising that ERISA litigators smell blood in the water like the sharks people think they are....more
Fidelity is being sued and being investigated for shelf space payments they receive from mutual fund companies for room on their fund platform. They’re not the only provider to receive these fees and I find it totally...more
According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, the Department of Labor (DOL), is looking at an obscure and confidential “infrastructure” fee that Fidelity charges the mutual fund companies for putting their funds on its...more
OxyContin maker Purdue Pharm is prepping for a possible bankruptcy filing “as it seeks to contain liability from hundreds of lawsuits alleging it fueled the nation’s opioid epidemic.” Officially, the company went on the...more