Wow. Don’t think the heat is on for company 401(k) sponsors and other fiduciaries of employee retirement benefit plans who may not have done enough benchmarking and due diligence to make sure that mutual fund and advisor fees are as low as possible? Then take a look at this article out of the Washington Post
The Duty to Disclose Possible Exposures When Applying for Insurance Policies
Why do we have insurance coverage lawyers, and why, as Mark Mayerson has written, has “insurance-coverage law . . . developed over the last 20 years into a rarefied specialty practice”? Because when lawyers who don’t know their way around the subject get involved with insurance coverage, problems just pile up. A case
What Happens When Reimbursement of Overpaid Benefits Is Equitable for Purposes of ERISA, but Nonetheless Inequitable?
Here is an interesting little twist on the common scenario of a plan overpaying retirement benefits and then seeking reimbursement, as allowed under the plan’s terms, of the overpayment from the plan beneficiary. Normally, these cases are focused on whether the reimbursement qualifies as equitable relief that the fiduciary is allowed to pursue. In this
Animators at Law and Sophisticated Trial Graphics
I recently had a fun virtual meeting, by conference call and downloads, with Animators at Law, who produce 2D and 3D trial graphics, and in particular with Christine McCarey, a former in-house counsel and now the company’s national director of business development. I have been at this long enough to remember when trial graphics
Restitution, Anti-Alienation and ERISA
Although I am diligent about covering in this blog ERISA decisions coming out of the courts in the First Circuit, I also keep an eye on ERISA decisions elsewhere in the country and discuss them when there is something particularly interesting about them that catches my eye. The Ninth Circuit has just done exactly that,
Fiduciary Advisors, Due Diligence, and Avoiding Fiduciary Liability
Michael Pratico, a fiduciary advisor to retirement plans throughout New England for Captrust Financial Advisors, and one of my favorite touchstones for real world – i.e. non-lawyer – information about the actual operation of retirement benefit plans, pointed out an interesting conundrum to me the other day concerning the operations of retirement plans and
Anne B. Kingsley Ovarian Cancer Foundation
When I posted my interview with veteran insurance executive Robert Kingsley a couple weeks ago, on the subjects of insurance industry consolidation and what insurers think about the lawyers they hire, I failed to mention that, in addition to his years in the industry, Rob is also the founder of the Anne B. Kingsley Ovarian
Law Reviews Are Dead, They Just Don’t Know It Yet
Kevin O’Keefe, the trial lawyer turned legal blogging evangelist who runs LexBlog, the company that provides the technical support – but not any of the copy – for this blog and for the many other blogs listed on the lower left hand corner of this page, has been running a series of posts on the
When Is a Plan Administrator a Fiduciary?
Here is a fascinating decision out of the federal district court for Rhode Island arising out of a dispute over plan contributions required of a contractor under collective bargaining agreements in the construction context. What I most liked about the case is its discussion of the challenge to the plaintiffs’ standing to bring an ERISA
Directors and Officers Insurance, Backdating and Effective Coverage Counsel
Sometimes when I give seminars on directors and officers coverage, I like to pass along a story I once heard of a law professor who gives his students what he considers an impossible hypothetical, namely, how would you respond to a client who walks in the door saying that she has been asked to join