The district court found "the mere fact that the plan included the affiliated funds—and defendants were aware of that fact—is not sufficient to charge them with constructive knowledge of their predecessors’ alleged improper selection process.”
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation has published a new form and instructions with the goal of streamlining and simplifying the ERISA Title IV coverage determination process.
In a new ERISA lawsuit seeking class action status, the plaintiffs claim their pension assets were disloyally and imprudently transferred during a complex series of corporate spinoffs and mergers.
"How does it make sense to say that if you are a dollar over-funded, there is no risk of harm to the participants, but if you are a dollar under-funded, there is risk of harm or wrongdoing? It’s an illogical way to analyze this issue,” the attorney said.
The mortality table in question, published in 1971, assumes 90% of Huntington Ingalls Industries’ employees are male and that 90% of contingent beneficiary annuitants are female, while utilizing a 6% interest rate.
The decision out of the 8th Circuit ties together the influential Supreme Court decisions known as Fifth Third v. Dudenhoeffer and Tibble v. Edison.
A federal court found plan fiduciaries acted with loyalty and prudence, and that plaintiffs failed to show the failure to have an investment policy in place, standing alone, proves imprudence.
ERISA allows plan participants to sue to remedy demonstrable harms they have suffered as a result of fiduciary breaches. Less clear is how to apply ERISA’s remedies when a breach is alleged to have occurred within a well-funded pension plan.
MFS has also agreed to pay $6,875,000 into a qualified settlement fund to resolve the claims of the court-approved class.
The investment committee for two Intel Corporation retirement plans asked the court to determine whether the provision of plan documents, in itself, creates for participants “actual knowledge” of an alleged fiduciary breach under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA).
Specifically, the petition for writ of certiorari asked the Supreme Court to answer the question: “In pleading a breach of fiduciary duty under ERISA, is it sufficient for a plaintiff to allege a deficient decision-making process indirectly through inferences from the facts known to her?”
Retirement plan investment and recordkeeping fees have fallen in the last 10 years, but ERISA litigator Jerry Schlichter says there is more room for improvement.
ERISA attorney Marcia Wagner gives her take on the retirement plan lawsuits that have recently been appealed to the Supreme Court.
The judge determined that the plaintiffs’ allegations sufficiently suggest the prospect that a fiduciary breach occurred, and as a result they have been given leave to amend their complaint.
Under the terms of a recently revealed settlement agreement, Vanderbilt 403(b) plan fiduciaries will have to contractually prohibit recordkeepers and other service providers from using plan participant data for the purposes of cross-selling.
A mixed-bag district court ruling in Colorado closely examines the investment policy statements and contracts which governed the relationship between an advisory firm and a retirement plan committee facing an ERISA lawsuit.
However, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals did remand back to a district court the calculation of interest on the $7,367,382.13 in damages awarded.
The complaint suggests defendants “larded the plan with excessively expensive sub-advised accounts” that paid excessive fees to the recordkeeper John Hancock.