Ran into John Lowell, who writes the Benefits and Compensation with John Lowell blog, the other evening, and we discussed his post on Cigna v. Amara, in which he referenced the fact that no one really knows for certain what the decision will mean in the long run, but he had never seen so
Amara
Well, I’m not going to beat Amara to death right now, and hopefully I will be back later on with more thoughtful comments on the decision. However, this wouldn’t be much of an ERISA blog if you couldn’t find a new Supreme Court decision on ERISA on it on the day it is issued, so
Extrapolating From Employer Stock Drop Cases to Other Types of Investment Losses
Susan Mangiero, who brings expertise in finance and investments to the discussion over the propriety of various investments in defined contribution plans and whether their presence in a plan can support a claim for breach of fiduciary duty, has written this interesting post on the issue I discussed here, namely the role of
Live Blogging from Bentley College . . .
Live blogging is usually used to mean that someone is attending a seminar and putting up posts about it while there. I mean it differently, that I will be talking live, about the topics I regularly address in my blog posts, at this seminar on May 10 hosted by Asset Strategy Consultants-Boston. The seminar is
Playing Hot Potato With Employer Stock
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.