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
Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Pity the Poor Fiduciary, Trapped Between the Securities Laws and ERISA
One continuing theme in the posts on this blog is the replacement by plaintiffs’ class action firms of securities actions with ERISA breach of fiduciary duty actions in stock drop and similar type cases; the large class actions are brought on behalf of plan participants who hold company stock, often in an ESOP, against the
Wooten and ERISA Preemption: When History and Current Desires Collide
A little judicial activism anyone? I am not sure what else, when you look at the actual history of how ERISA preemption came into being, you can call the demands that come from many quarters for courts to reduce the scope of preemption in the ERISA context, or, for that matter, the Ninth Circuit’s decision
LaRue, The Postscript
Remember the grave concern in different quarters about whether the Supreme Court’s ruling in LaRue would lead to a flood of litigation? Turns out it didn’t even do so in the LaRue case itself, which, now on remand at the trial court level, has been voluntarily dismissed by the plaintiff to avoid the expense
Plain English and the Insurance Coverage Lawyer
I have written before about why insurance companies use experts on insurance coverage, and why policyholders need to use them too. Indeed, there is little doubt in my mind that lawyers who aren’t specialists in the field often put their clients at a disadvantage when they engage insurance companies in disputes over insurance policies without