This is an interesting piece on one of the most loaded issues in ERISA litigation, namely the potential personal liability of corporate officers who run a company’s benefit plans, in particular their defined contribution plans, such as 401(k)s or ESOPs. The article drives home the fact that when CFOs or other officers are named as
What Exactly is the Investment Drag of Macaroni and Cheese?
This is interesting – it’s the story, in abbreviated form, of the Seventh Circuit breathing new life into an excessive fee class action case, by finding that there is a factual question of whether the fiduciaries properly evaluated their options and that the defendants cannot insulate themselves easily from their obligation to properly monitor
Excessive Fee Claims After Tibble and Hecker
I thought I would pass along that my article on the law of excessive fee claims under ERISA is coming out this week in the Spring 2011 edition of the Journal of Pension Benefits. Titled “Retreat from the High Water Mark: Breach of Fiduciary Duty Claims Involving Excessive Fees After Tibble v. Edison International,” the
What Can We Learn From a List of the Best 401(k) Plans?
Funny, this chart from Bloomberg on the top rated 401(k) plans in the country, taken from the BrightScope data. When I first discovered BrightScope’s beta site and blogged on it, I was struck by the fact that if you want a good retirement, you should go to work for the Saudi Arabian oil company. This
Fiduciary Definitions Change Hand in Hand with the Real World
One underlying theme of much commentary about 401(k) plans is the idea that their replacement of pensions as the primary retirement vehicle for most private sector workers was not intended, and is the walking, talking example of the law of unintended consequences. Seen as it was in its origin myth – as a supplemental retirement
Pozek on Werewolves
I have mentioned to people in the past that I am reasonably confident that I am the only author of legal information who has managed to link Walker Percy, denied benefit claims and ERISA in the same publication, which I did here in this post. I think that’s a pretty good stupid human trick myself.
Adam and John on the Obligations of Reasonableness and the Problems with SPDs, Respectively
Well, geez, I am embarrassed by the awkward silence in this space over the past couple of weeks. I was out of the country on business for a bit, and digging out ever since. Not that I ever lost sight of the ball, though, as I kept jotting down stories and developments that I wanted
Book Review of “General Liability Insurance Coverage: Key Issues in Every State”
Why do I blog? For the swag, of course. Well, no, not really, but I did just receive a review copy of Randy Maniloff and Jeffrey Stempel’s new General Liability Insurance Coverage deskbook, and it is tremendous. The book bears the subtitle “Key Issues in Every State,” and that phrase on the book’s
Me, Behavioral Finance and PlanSponsor Magazine
Alert reader Tom Obara of Cassidy Retirement Group here in Massachusetts – or as I have taken to calling it during this perpetually snowy winter, East Dakota – passed along to me an article on behavioral finance in January’s issue of PlanSponsor in which I am quoted on the need for plan sponsors to adequately
Directors and Officers Coverage, Exclusions and the Magic Words “In Fact”
Here is a terrific article on the lessons about directors and officers insurance that should be taken from a series of rulings that eventually ended coverage for the Stanford Financial executives. I have said many times that because the scope of D & O insurance is so dependent on the scope of the exclusions, it