There have been an interesting series of federal court decisions concerning ERISA preemption during the past few months, some of which, in my view, cannot be fairly squared with the United States Supreme Court’s preemption decision earlier this year in Gobeille v. Liberty Mutual. I discussed in my recent article in Bloomberg BNA’s Tax
Singing the Praises of ESOPs
I do a lot of litigation related to ESOPs, sometimes for them, and sometimes against them. One thing I have learned for sure over the years is that the well-run ESOPs, where everything is aboveboard and the fiduciaries are clearly acting – and want to act – in the interest of the employee participants, are
The Ninth Circuit Deems the Compensation of Outside Medical Reviewers Relevant in LTD Litigation, in Demer v MetLife
So the other particularly fascinating item – to me, anyway – that popped up in my twitter feed while I was on vacation was this important decision by the Ninth Circuit, Demer v. IBM and MetLife, addressing whether (and, if so, how) the number of reviews done by, and compensation earned by, outside medical
ACI’s Forum on Minimizing Legal Risks in Executive Compensation
Another one of the things I fell behind on during vacation was passing along a special offer if you would like to attend the American Conference Institute’s November conference in New York on Executive Compensation, where I will be speaking on “Separations, Severances and Executive Departures.” The faculty as a whole for the two
Thoughts From the Beach on the Excessive Fee Cases Against Prestigious Universities
Back from spending a week in the great state of Maine (you go, Palace Diner!), but even when I am away, “the sun comes up [a]nd the world still spins,” nowhere more, it seems, then in the world of ERISA litigation. So over the next few days, I am going to try
Moving on From the Churches, the ERISA Plaintiffs’ Bar Takes Aim at the Universities
Well now. The world’s leading private attorney general of ERISA fee enforcement has now instituted four coordinated lawsuits against the retirement plans of major universities (MIT, Yale, NYU and Duke, as of this writing). I haven’t read the complaints yet, and have only read the industry articles on it (I like this one, and
Two Reasons Why the Department of Labor’s New Fiduciary Regulations Are Likely to Spawn More Litigation Against Financial Advisers
I wrote the other day about the Department of Labor’s legal position in response to lawsuits alleging that its new fiduciary regulations are illegal, and in that post, I referred to why the regulations have provoked such an outcry, which is that they fundamentally change the manner in which many financial advisers and financial
Floating a Few Thoughts on Kelley v. Fidelity
I don’t have too much to say about the specific details of this opinion in Kelley v. Fidelity Management Trust Company, out of the First Circuit yesterday on a putative class action against Fidelity related to the use of float income from plan transactions. This is particularly because it is primarily a technical decision
What Lies at the Intersection of §502(a)(3) and ACI’s 13th National Forum on ERISA Litigation?
Is there anything more interesting right now than ERISA §502(a)(3)? For those of you who don’t know it off the top of your head, and don’t feel like googling it right this second, this is the section of ERISA’s remedies provision that authorizes suits for equitable relief. For the longest time, this was a nearly
Challenging the Department of Labor’s Authority to Regulate the Annuity Marketplace: National Association for Fixed Annuities v. Thomas Perez and the Department of Labor
I wrote yesterday on the first complaint filed, in federal court in Texas, challenging the Department of Labor’s new fiduciary regulations, and then within hours, a second such suit was filed. The second suit is a more narrowly targeted action, brought by sellers of fixed annuities and charging that the Department of Labor, for various