Here is an excellent article on electronic discovery under the federal rules, and efforts to reduce the expense of this process by protecting against inadvertent waiver of privilege. As long time readers know, I have frequently criticized the structure and format of the federal rules, and their application by the courts, concerning electronic discovery, for
Back Again at the Crossroads of Securities Law and ERISA
Here is a case from a week or so ago that I haven’t had time to post on yet, but which warranted a little more discussion than suited inclusion in Monday’s Thanksgiving Week potpourri post. In his latest ruling in In re Boston Scientific Corporation ERISA Litigation, Judge Tauro of the United States District
GM and the Viability of Pension Plans
Well, I am not quite sure what to say, or perhaps more accurately where to start, with regard to this article in the New York Times today on the surprising financial health – at least for now – of the GM pension plan. As the company otherwise founders, the article describes years of responsible, forward
A Thanksgiving Week Feast
Some of the more prolific bloggers manage to be prolific by posting short notes on various topics of interest written by others, which isn’t my usual style. But over the past week or so I have managed to back up a good stack of things that I have wanted to talk about in detail, but
The Longer Term Impact of the Last Several Weeks on Pension Plans
There’s an old saying that nothing focuses the mind like an execution date; all trial lawyers have heard judges rephrase it as nothing focuses the mind so much on settlement as an imminent trial date. I thought of this saying when I read this article, in which Susan Mangiero of Pension Governance
Excessive Fees in 401(k) Plans: Its What You Do, Not Who You Know, That Counts
I am a real big fan of this article here, on two recent rulings in major excessive fee 401(k) lawsuits, one against Wal-Mart and the other against Bechtel. While I haven’t read the rulings in those cases themselves yet, what I like about the rulings, at least as depicted in the article, is that
You Say Securities Law, I Say ERISA
Stop me if I am beating a dead horse, but this press release/short story on a class action law firm’s investigation into a stock drop involving Hartford’s stock reads exactly like one that, a few years ago, would have been issued prior to pursuing a securities class action; now its written in advance of pursuing
Revenue Sharing, Fees, Indemnity and Contribution: A Potpourri of Hot Button Issues Confronting Fiduciaries
So you’re an amateur fiduciary, nominally in charge of a company’s pension plan or 401(k) plan but generally relying on your outside vendors and service providers for substantive advice and decision making, and you get sued for breach of fiduciary duty because of losses resulting from the investment advice you received from them. So
Legal Services as Commodities, and the Role of Insurance in that Process
The macro view of trends is often fun, but detailed analysis of what is really going on is often more fruitful. A long, long time ago – in blog years, anyway, which given the youth of legal blogging is akin to dog years – I wrote this post about how the rise of employment practices
The Amateur Fiduciary
Geez, I hate to do this, but sometimes you have to play connect the dots. Reading this story about amateur (some would call it democratically run – small d, local government style) municipal pension plans and their investment strategies that got them caught up in the current collateralized debt obligation/securitization mess, I kept thinking to