Nevin E. Adams
After nearly six years of litigation, the settlement terms of an ERISA litigation case that has been all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court (and “back”) have come to light.
Specifically, plaintiffs Larry W. Jander and Richard Waksman and Defendants Retirement Plans Committee of IBM, Richard Carroll...
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Another federal court has weighed in on the status of participant data as a plan asset.
The issue arose most recently last January in an excessive fee suit brought by the St. Louis-based law firm of Schlichter, Bogard & Denton on behalf of four participant-plaintiffs in Shell Oil Co.'s $10.5...
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A new excessive fee suit is long on explanations and short on allegations, but makes some familiar arguments from a relative newcomer to ERISA litigation.
This particular suit (Mator v. Wesco Distrib., Inc., W.D. Pa., No. 2:21-cv-00403, complaint 3/26/21) was filed on behalf of current...
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Is the concept of “retirement” no longer relevant?
For starters, there are any number of consumer surveys that suggest that a growing number of American workers—of all ages—no longer expect to retire—or expect to do so at ages well beyond what is likely to be available to them.
Moreover, there...
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A new study finds that automatic enrollment not only triples the participation rate of new hires, but that over time the vast majority increase their deferral rates.
The report—“Automatic enrollment: The power of the default” by researchers at Vanguard, found that among new hires, participation...
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Just three weeks before a trial date, a class action lawsuit with a “long litigation history” has settled for just under $10 million—along with a cut for plaintiffs’ attorneys “slightly above the presumptively reasonable fee of 25%...”
The settlement—which will wind up covering some 17,000...
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A year ago today [March 16] was the last time I was in our office with it full of colleagues. Like many of you, we came in, packed up, and headed home—prepared to work from there for a couple of weeks, perhaps a month.
Of course, that didn’t turn out to be the case.
And yet—as an industry,...
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It’s often said that “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” Of course, it’s also said that doing the same thing and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. So, how might that apply in a fiduciary suit?
As it turns out, in a recent case three participant-plaintiffs...
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The law firm of Capozzi Adler, P.C. has found another 401(k) plan to sue—and this one’s a multiple employer plan.
And while the plan in question was a multiple employer plan[1]—that seemed largely incidental to the allegations made.
The plan—more specifically the plan fiduciaries—targeted are...
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A recent paper was titled “COVID 19 Is Not a Retirement Story.” A week later, an article on Forbes.com said: “COVID-19 Is Most Certainly a Retirement Story.” So, which is it?
As it turns out, the former was authored by the folks at the Center for Retirement Research (CRR) at Boston College—who...
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One of the largest 401(k) excessive fee suit settlements—$39.8 million—has been approved.
The settlement arose in a case involving Reliance Trust and its role regarding the Insperity 401(k) Plan, in which the plaintiffs—represented by the law firm of Schlichter Bogard & Denton—were enrolled....
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A federal appellate court has ruled that Fidelity’s FundsNetwork supermarket is… a supermarket, and again rejected claims that Fidelity’s relationship with those fund companies made it a fiduciary.
The Gist
Ultimately, while the appellate court acknowledged that Fidelity does have some fiduciary...
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A recent industry trade article questions the efficacy of saving early for retirement—and notes that there “may even be such a thing as saving too much.”
What launches that premise is a research paper titled “Is Automatic Enrollment Consistent with a Life Cycle Model?” That turns out to be a...
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We now know the final piece of the excessive fee class action settlement struck by Fidelity with participant-plaintiffs in its own 401(k) plan: the attorneys’ fees.
The original suit was filed in October 2018 by plaintiffs Kevin Moitoso, Tim Lewis and Mary Lee Torline (and now joined by Sheryl...
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Student loan debt—or more precisely, the forgiveness of some part of it—has dominated the headlines of late—but it’s been on the minds of retirement plan sponsors for a while now. The question is—why?
While the issue is hardly new, the connection between retirement savings and student debt really...
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With two law firms competing for the right to represent plaintiffs in an excessive fee case, a federal judge has made a choice based on resources.
Vying for consideration as counsel for the class action plaintiffs were two law firms active in the ERISA litigation space: Schlichter Bogard &...
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The parties in a case that promised to set a new fiduciary threshold in stock drop litigation—that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court—and back—has settled.
The parties here were those in the case of Jander v. Retirement Plans Committee of IBM, 910 F.3d 620 (2d Cir. 2018)—which had been...
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The Schlichter law firm has a new target—in a suit that not only involves a MEP, and a target-date fund family, but an advisor—and allegations of “a profound conflict of interest.”
This time the targets are NFP Retirement, Inc., flexPATH Strategies, LLC, Wood Group U.S. Holdings, Inc., Wood Group...
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Could contributions to Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) actually “crowd out” contributions to 401(k)s?
A chart book just published by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) suggest that the answer is—yes. It’s a conclusion—or at least a provocative question—that runs counter to the...
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Once again, plaintiffs find the “more harm than good” bar too high to clear in employer stock litigation.
This time the plaintiff is one Adele Varga, and she is appealing the March 5, 2020 judgment of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York that dismissed her class action...
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