Passing Along Some Reading on Excessive Fee Cases and Other Timely ERISA Topics
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What would this blog be if it was done as a newsletter instead? Well, probably something like this new ERISA newsletter out of Proskauer Rose, with its detailed but readable length discussions of current events in the field, such as the Supreme Court’s recent decision in LaRue and the Supreme Court’s consideration of whether to hear a case that will allow it to return again to the problem of defining the available scope of equitable relief under ERISA. For me personally, I particularly liked the discussion of the latest trends at the trial level in the federal court system with regard to lawsuits filed over allegedly excessive fees charged on mutual fund investment options, as it takes an approach that I like to pursue whenever possible in my own posts here on this blog: it discusses the early decisions on the issue at the motions stage in the trial courts, and looks ahead to what this may mean for the industry as a whole and service providers. Its worth a read, and if you enjoy this blog, you will almost certainly enjoy this newsletter as well.
Want to Learn More About the Post-LaRue World?
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I am trying to kick the LaRue habit, but couldn’t resist going back to the well one more time (how’s that for mixing my metaphors?). I know from readers of this blog and from talking to other lawyers that people are very interested in LaRue and the Supreme Court’s current interest in ERISA cases - in fact, one lawyer told me that right after LaRue was decided he was at a meeting on an entirely different topic but LaRue is all anyone wanted to talk about that day- so I wanted to pass along this very interesting looking teleconference next month on individual 401(k) suits post-LaRue. The faculty includes Tom Gies, who represented the plan and its sponsor in LaRue, and Karen L. Handorf, an attorney currently in private practice who previously worked for the Office of the Solicitor of Labor, background that may make her ideally suited to comment on one of the biggest mysteries of all raised by LaRue and the Supreme Court’s selection for its docket of two more ERISA cases, namely what’s with the Supreme Court’s sudden fascination with ERISA litigation.
Conducting an ERISA Self-Audit
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We spend a lot of time here at the blog talking about lawsuits, causes of action, and court rulings concerning ERISA issues; the name of the blog, after all, is the Boston ERISA and Insurance Litigation blog. But every litigator knows that the flip side to a lawsuit is prevention, and the key to prevention in the employee benefit world is the ERISA self-audit, whereby a plan investigates itself to ensure compliance and avoid subsequent government action or private litigation. For those of you interested in this “ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” approach, here’s an interesting looking teleconference on key topics in conducting such an audit.
More Education is Always Better than Less: American Conference Institute's Upcoming Seminar on 401(k) Risks
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I mentioned in yesterday’s post that my goal for the week was to move rapidly through several items that had caught my attention over the last week or so, and that I wanted to pass on to readers of this blog. I thought the next one I would mention is this conference in New York in December, sponsored by the American Conference Institute, on litigation and regulatory issues related to 401(k) plans. The subject matter of the conference ranges across the hottest topics in litigation and potential exposures for sponsors and fiduciaries of 401(k) plans, including stock drop litigation, excessive fee issues, and in a topic that hits both primary subjects of this blog, insurance coverage for fiduciary liability risks. Here’s the brochure for the conference.
20th Annual ERISA Litigation Conference
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I wanted to pass this along while the electronic brochure was still (fairly) hot off the metaphorical presses and cooling off in my in-box. Here’s the information for West Legalworks’ 20th Annual ERISA Litigation Conference, held in, well, probably the three best places you could pick: Florida in February, and California and New York City in the fall.
On a more analytical note, what really jumped out at me is the conference’s focus this year on what the marketing materials describe as “ the continuing lessons from the post-Enron wave of litigation over employer stock investments in 401(k) and ESOP plans and . . . the current wave of decisions addressing whether former employees who withdrew their plan balances before bringing suit have standing,” as well as on the “impact of procedural violations of the claims and appeal regulations [and] [t]he recent crop of preemption cases,” all topics that have been discussed extensively over the past year here on this blog.
Introducing Pension Governance LLC
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I have talked before about my tendency to veer from my appointed rounds when something more interesting appears on the horizon than that which I had planned to work or post on, and today is another one of those days. I came in full of grand hopes to discuss insurance coverage for intellectual property risks and discovery issues in insurance bad faith cases, using two upcoming seminars on those topics as a foundation from which to riff. Those can wait for another day, and I will return to them, either over the weekend or next week, but something more interesting appeared on the horizon this morning that I wanted to post on, and that is likely to be of interest to those of you who read this blog out of a professional interest in ERISA and how it applies to 401(k) plans and pensions, namely, the launching of Pension Governance LLC, a subscriber website providing independent advice and information for pension investment fiduciaries. Among other features, the website, http://www.pensiongovernance.com/home.php, provides analysis, research and commentary on issues affecting defined contribution and defined benefit plans; interviews with industry leaders; annotated online articles from a variety of news sources; access to research team members; original content from expert practitioners; and educational webinars.
Readers of this blog who have been curious enough to peruse either the “About Stephen Rosenberg” part of this blog or the what’s new section of my firm’s website already know that I am a member of the website’s editorial board; I have already submitted one article for the site, and am looking forward to contributing still more to it.
While I am excited about the launch of the website, that’s not the only reason I write about it today. The more urgent reason for writing about it today, and to introduce Pension Governance to you right on the heels of its launch, is that the site is currently offering a free two week trial subscription, and I think the information that it makes available will be of interest to many who read this blog.
Investment Management Fees, and Contract Geeks
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Two things to chew on over the holiday, other than the turducken (I have always wanted to use that word in a sentence), one to know about before it occurs, the other to note before it disappears. I guess I could take that dichotomy a little further, and note that one concerns the first half of the blog’s title, and the other, the other half.
The first: Susan Mangiero, who writes the excellent blog Pension Risk Matters, is hosting a webinar on November 28 covering issues related to investment fees, the management of 401(k) plans, and fiduciary obligations. The webinar, covering “401(k) plan fees - what they are, how they can affect reported performance and the fiduciary practices that address investment management fees” is driven by the fact that:
In the aftermath of the Pension Protection Act of 2006, 401(k) plan sponsors are required to carefully select "fiduciary advisors", identify appropriate default investment choices for participants and comply with more rigorous federal reporting procedures. All of this could spell trouble for retirement plan fiduciaries who fail to realize that regulation, public awareness and employee angst put them in the spotlight as never before. This is especially apropos with respect to plan fees.
You can find more information on the webinar here.
The second: Insurance coverage lawyers, almost by definition, have to be contracts geeks. At the end of the day, what they are really doing is fighting over the language in contracts, a particular type of contract certainly, but contracts nonetheless. And here, before it vanishes from the internet, is the story of how much money there is in not being a contracts geek.
19th Annual ERISA Litigation Conference
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West Legalworks has announced the time, place, faculty and subject matter for its annual ERISA Litigation Conference, the 19th ANNUAL ERISA LITIGATION CONFERENCE: The Nation's Leading Forum on How Current Rulings Affect Claims, Plan Design and Operations.
For those of us who litigate cases governed by ERISA and who like this stuff, this one looks like fun.