Fiduciary Governance

A federal judge has denied the Labor Department’s motion to move a suit involving the so-called ESG regulation from a federal court in Texas to Washington, DC. U.S. District Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk denied the Department of Labor’s (DOL) motion (State of Utah et al. v. Walsh et al., case number... READ MORE

Commenting that “the Florida court’s analysis is rooted in a fundamental legal error,” the Department of Labor says it may appeal a ruling that upended its guidance pertaining to fiduciary duty regarding rollovers. Last month, the United States District Court’s Middle District of Florida sided... READ MORE

In a move to encourage choice in retirement saving, President Biden vetoed a measure on March 20 that the administration says would block plan fiduciaries from freely considering the best interest of workers and savers in retirement plan investment offerings.   The veto, the Administration’s first... READ MORE

A number of recent excessive fee suits have failed to state a “plausible” claim to move past a motion to dismiss — but a federal judge in Massachusetts embraced what seems to be a lower threshold and is allowing one of those cases to proceed to trial. This suit involved participants in the MITRE... READ MORE

The Washington Update at Actuarial Insights was necessarily fast-paced. SECURE 2.0 includes dozens of new retirement plan-related provisions and we wanted to give an overview of as many as time permitted.  SECURE 2.0 included several provisions of particular interest to defined benefit plan ... READ MORE

Total costs for 401(k)s, once again, declined for both small and large retirement plans, with investment fees leading the decline — though smaller plans are still paying slightly more.    This is according to the 23rd edition of the 401k Averages Book, which reveals that total investment costs... READ MORE

On Feb. 14, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) closed the comment period for its controversial late-processing proposed rule to combat an issue first raised nearly 20 years ago.  The proposal would require open-end funds to use “swing pricing,” the method to allocate costs from inflows... READ MORE

The Labor Department has weighed in on an excessive fee case on behalf of the participant-plaintiffs — asserting that the district court made a bad call on the burden of proof. The case under appeal involves Home Depot, and a decision last fall by Judge Steven D. Grimberg in the U.S. District ... READ MORE

The plaintiffs in an excessive fee suit are pressing for consideration of a settlement, arguing that recent decisions against claims similar to theirs don’t bode well for their case. Now, in fairness, that’s not precisely their argument[1]. But these plaintiffs (Reichert et al. v. Juniper Networks... READ MORE