JD
Despite long being called the “third rail” of American politics, Social Security—or more precisely its viability—has reemerged as an issue in the 2024 presidential campaign.
It came up most recently in a mini-GOP debate between former U.N. ambassador/South Carolina governor Nikki Haley and Florida...
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December’s Social Security cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) didn’t keep pace with inflation, but a new report says that Social Security beneficiaries could be riding an inflation rollercoaster this year, courtesy of 2023’s 8.7% COLA—alongside static income thresholds for taxation of benefits....
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The IRS has issued initial guidance to help employers with implementation of pension-linked emergency savings accounts (PLESAs).
Authorized under the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022, PLESAs are individual accounts in defined contribution plans—designed to permit and encourage employees to save for...
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“If this is the law, then that would be news to Congress and the regulatory agencies, which have declared for decades that forfeitures can be used in this manner,” says a motion to dismiss a lawsuit alleging a fiduciary breach in offsetting employer contributions with forfeitures.
The motion to...
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There is a “common wisdom” in our business that suggests that all plan sponsors are, more or less, alike; that large plans are the inevitable early adopters of trends that, sooner or later, trickle down to plans of all sizes.
Consequently, those who make their living trying to discern trends and...
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A billion-dollar plan has come to terms—cash and non-monetary terms—with participant-plaintiffs represented by Capozzi Adler that had made claims the plan paid $77 per participant, when plans of similar sizes were paying as little as $25 per participant.
The suit had been filed against Advance...
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A number of lawsuits have recently been filed regarding the alleged misuse of forfeitures—but just a couple of months ago a plan was sued—and lost—a case brought by the Labor Department for not following the plan document’s forfeiture provisions.
According to the Labor Department, on Dec. 27, 2017...
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The fiduciary defendants of a $4.3 billion 401(k) plan have prevailed in their revised motion to dismiss a fiduciary breach suit involving the selection and retention of a suite of target date funds.
The Cleveland, OH-based Parker Hannifin 401(k) plan fiduciaries were accused by a handful of...
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Recently, I came across an announcement that IBM was making changes to its 401(k).
More specifically that, effective next year they were going to replace their matching contribution in their 401(k) with an employer contribution to a cash balance plan.[1] In the days that followed, the news was...
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The parties in an excessive fee suit have come to terms—on at least one aspect of the litigation, though the bulk remains to be appealed.
The suit in question involves Genentech’s $7.6 billion (33,693 participant) 401(k) plan. The plaintiff is one Matthew Wehner (represented by Shepherd, Finkelman...
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Like many of you, I have spent a fair amount of time over the past couple of weeks reading and analyzing the impact and import of the new fiduciary rule proposal—not to mention the legal pundits who seek to tell us what they think it means, or might mean, regardless of what the proposal actually...
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A recent appellate court ruling that upheld a district court’s rejection of expert witness testimony has been raised as a defense in an excessive fee suit.
The suit in question involved the fiduciaries of the $5.2 billion L3Harris Retirement Savings Plan—a suit that in March 2022 claimed the...
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Halloween is the time of year when one’s thoughts turn to trick-or-treat, ghosts and goblins, and things that go bump in the night. But what keeps—or should keep—plan fiduciaries up at night?
Well, there are the things like…
Re-enrollment
Automatic enrollment has long been shown to transform...
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Ahead of today’s anticipated rollout of a new fiduciary rule, the Biden Administration has issued a fact sheet previewing its content—including an issue of long concern to the American Retirement Association.
The fact sheet focuses on the issue of conflicted advice, specifically calling out what...
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The nation’s highest court has decided not to decide the applicability of an arbitration clause in fending off an ERISA suit.
The case that had been appealed to the United States Supreme Court was decided in favor of the participant-plaintiffs by the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th...
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The parties in a suit that claimed a $7.3 billion plan “stocked the Plan’s investment menu with their own proprietary index funds”—while “participants got the short end of the stick” have come to terms.
As it turns out, the plaintiffs in this case (are Rita Kohari, John Radolec and Mohani Jaikaran...
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For the second time in a month, a law firm has brought suit challenging the use of forfeitures in a 401(k) plan.
The lawyers are from Hayes Pawlenko LLP, a South Pasadena, CA-based duo (who met in law school, according to their website) positioning themselves as an employment litigation firm “...
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There’s an oft-repeated line from that 1967 classic movie “Cool Hand Luke” about a “failure to communicate.”
Now, most of us aren’t trying to convey the consequences of violating prison rules, but there are messages where mere words sometimes fall short of their purpose. There are literal...
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Noting that "the settling parties agreed to the proposed settlement only after vigorous arm's-length negotiations between counsel experienced in ERISA class actions and under the auspices of … a third-party private mediator with extensive experience mediating ERISA actions”—the parties in yet...
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Another federal judge has weighed the assertions made in an excessive fee suit—and found them lacking both in terms of a “meaningful benchmark,” and specificity of the claims made.
The Suit
The plaintiffs here—Jennifer R. Lard, John G. Juergens, Gerald L. Robinson, Scott W. Anderson, Thomas A....
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