There is much uproar at the moment over the possible expansion of fiduciary status to include appraisers, whose work includes valuing the assets held by the participants in ESOPs. Appraisers understandably do not want to assume that status, with its potential to turn them into defendants in ESOP breach of fiduciary duty litigation under ERISA; at a minimum, it opens them up to incurring defense costs (or the premium costs of insuring against that risk) from being named as a defendant. Personally, though, the risk seems to me to be overstated: appraisers will have to price that risk into their services, driving up the costs of operating an ESOP somewhat, but they are certainly not going to abandon the business, as some critics of this possible change have claimed. It’s a substantial business, providing appraisal services to ESOPs, and it is hard to imagine all the appraisers in America walking away from that work simply because of this risk, and the need to factor it into their pricing.

That said, however, I don’t believe it is necessary, or warranted, to expand the definition of fiduciary to capture appraisers of ESOP assets. I discussed this issue in depth in a presentation over a year ago to the New England Employee Benefits Council, as well as in a latter article in the Journal of Pension Benefits. Put simply, the structure of fiduciary responsibilities and liabilities that currently exists under ERISA is, in my view, sufficient to protect participants against problems with appraisals, and protecting participants from any such problems does not require turning appraisers into fiduciaries. I discussed this point, and my reasoning, in detail in this article.