Apparently there is something in the air these days about socially responsible investing and the fiduciary obligations of pension fiduciaries. I discussed here, just the other day, the argument that it is not a fiduciary breach to utilize a particular social agenda in investing and the litigation implications of that approach. Susan Mangiero has more to say on the same subject at her blog, Pension Risk Matters, here. I don’t know about this one, frankly. I know, as I discussed in my last post on this issue, that the more defensible position, if sued as a fiduciary, is to have stayed out of socially responsible investment in preference for a focus on maximum return investing. But geez, who wants to be the one who says fiduciary obligations preclude avoiding, in the scenario Susan discusses, investments in so-called terrorist countries?
Criminals and terrorists in my last two posts. I don’t know, maybe I better get off the ERISA beat and over to the digressions section of this blog, to write about intellectual property for a bit, a subject where, I don’t think, I can find any reason to write about such things.