Benefits November 14, 2008

The Hartford Now Faces Participant Lawsuit

November 14, 2008 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - The Hartford is now facing litigation from its own employees, who have lost hundreds of millions of dollars of retirement savings invested in the company's stock, the Hartford Courant reports.
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EDITOR’S NOTE: In our recent NQDC newsletter, there was a link to information regarding funding retiree health care obligations. Unfortunately, I put the wrong link in the newsletter – which is why you are “here”, instead of reading the article you were interested in. The correct link for that story is http://www.plansponsor.com/pi_type10/?RECORD_ID=43798

Apologies for the inconvenience.

The law firm Izard Nobel is local counsel for a civil suit proposed as a class action, according to the news report. The Hartford is facing allegations that it offered company stock as an investment when it was imprudent to do so and that it failed to inform participants of its true financial position.

According to the Courant, the plan had total assets of $3.04 billion at the end of 2007, and current and former employees had $650.9 million, or 21.4%, of that invested in company stock. Since then the stock price has plummeted 88%, from $87.19 to $10.46 a share.

The law firm of Milberg LLP announced this week it is investigating “possible illegal conduct by Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. and certain fiduciaries” of The Hartford Investment and Savings Plan (See The Hartford Draws Stock Drop Scrutiny ), as did Keller Rohrback LLP.

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