401(k) Plans and Breach of Fiduciary Duty Lawsuits
This article, making the same points, by the lawyers at Littler Mendelson, crossed my inbox today. It provides a nice easy to digest overview of the issue, and recommends the same preemptive course of conduct, in the form of these recommendations for due diligence:
Sound advice in my book, and one I - and others - have been recommending for awhile.What to Do? We believe that there are some actions that employers and plan fiduciaries can take to protect themselves:
•Continually monitor all plan and fund expenses and assure that they have negotiated the best deal for participants, but keeping in mind that fees are only one piece of the fiduciary puzzle; the others include risk, rate of return, and historical performance.
•Periodically review all aspects of the fund selection and monitoring, and document these efforts.
•Be sure that all plan expenses can be determined from documentation provided or made available to participants, and consider providing participants with a separate summary of those expenses.
•Review your service provider agreements, make sure you get legal counsel involved in negotiating those agreements. It is recommended that all 401(k) plan service provider agreements prohibit any undisclosed revenue sharing.
•Ask your plan service providers to provide you with a detailed written description of all plan fees – hard dollar and soft dollar.
•If you believe you may be vulnerable, consider having a legal audit performed on your 401(k) plan.