17.11.2022 11.59 CST
A round of court cases following Supreme Court’s Hughes decision places a greater burden on plaintiffs bringing fiduciary litigation.
Several recent decisions handed down by federal appellate courts offer some good news for plan fiduciaries. In each of these cases the courts affirmed dismissals of fiduciary litigation, concluding that the facts alleged were just not enough to support a claim. The dismissals were based on the courts’ assessment that even if the general facts alleged were true (e.g., that other plans paid less in recordkeeping or management fees or that other funds performed better) –those facts would not show that the actions taken by the fiduciaries for these specific plans were not prudent.
01.02.2022 03.04 CST
Fiduciaries are responsible to exercise prudence in all decisions—not just some.
The Supreme Court’s decision leaves unanswered many difficult questions facing fiduciaries.
02.03.2021 03.16 CST
Plaintiffs’ must use truly comparable benchmarks in claiming imprudent fiduciary decisions.
A recent court case provides some potentially valuable guidance into ways plan fiduciaries can approach fiduciary litigation. Most importantly, the case could force plaintiffs to focus on truly comparable situations in alleging that a plan’s actions were imprudent--this would limit plaintiffs’ ability to use, as benchmarks of prudent behavior, general industry data or different categories of investments (such as comparing index funds to actively managed funds).
07.02.2018 07.00 CST
A new chapter may be opening in the ongoing saga of litigation against plan fiduciaries. A new target in this sage - plan vendors’ use of participant confidential financial to facilitate the cross-sales of non-plan financial products.
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the NYU retirement plans have filed an amended complaint. This new complaint challenges the use, by the plans’ recordkeeper, of participant confidential financial data and the recordkeeper’s cross-selling of non-plan financial products to plan participants.
22.09.2017 10.04 CDT
: It is for plan administration to diverge from plan documents. It is also risky.
Two recent cases (Acosta v. Macy’s, Inc. and Erwood v. Life Ins. Company of North America) serve as reminders of how easy it is for plan administrative practices to diverge from plan documents. The cases also illustrate the risks of allowing this to happen.