Years ago I moved from reading fiction for fun to mostly reading non-fiction, not long after reading The Corrections and spending the whole time hearing, in style, tone and manner, echoes in the back of my head of writers as recent as Martin Amis, as old as Norman Mailer, and as somewhere in-between
401(k) Plans
Initial Thoughts on the Supreme Court’s Opinion in Tibble v. Edison
So what does it mean if you are an ERISA litigator who writes a blog and you are too busy litigating to write a post on Tibble v. Edison (even though you have published a widely read article on the case) right after the Supreme Court issues its opinion on the case? I don’t know…
Should Company Officers Run Retirement and Other Benefit Plans?
This is great – I loved the idea of this Bloomberg BNA webinar the minute it popped up in my in-box, just from the title: “Just Say No: Why Directors Should Avoid Duties That Will Subject Them to ERISA.” I have written extensively on the idea of accidental fiduciaries, and the manner in…
Company Stock in Retirement Plans: Where Lies the Line Between Prudent and Imprudent Conduct?
Chris Carosa at Fiduciary News highlighted this New York Times article in his twitter feed the other day, in which the author argued that there is no reason, from the point of view of a participant/employee, to hold large amounts of company stock in a retirement portfolio (as opposed to, say, as part of a …
Back to the Future: Learning from the Past and Looking into the Future of 401(k) Advisor Fees
So, my past two Mondays have been bookended by being quoted in a pair of excellent articles concerning the operation of 401(k) plans, one in Pensions & Investments and the other in Fiduciary News. The interesting thing about them is that one is about looking backwards, and the other about looking forwards. In the Pensions…
Me, Tibble, Pensions & Investments and Don Draper
What Does Spano v. Boeing Foretell About the Future of Excessive Fee Litigation (and about the Future Ruling in Tibble As Well)?
Tom Clark, who writes the excellent Fiduciary Matters Blog, gave me either a late Christmas or an early New Year’s present when he forwarded me, last week, the district court’s December 30th decision in Spano v. Boeing, which addressed numerous issues related to excessive fee litigation but, in particular, discussed the relationship of…
An Overview of 401(k) Litigation, Courtesy of Chris Carosa’s Excellent Interview with Jerry Schlichter
Chris Carosa of Fiduciary News has a tremendous interview with Jerry Schlichter, who has carved out an important niche litigating class action cases against 401(k) plans. Schlichter has litigated nearly all of the key excessive fee cases of the past few years, and currently has one pending before the Supreme Court. I discussed the case…
Tatum v. RJR Pension Investment Committee: What it Teaches About Fiduciary Obligations
Somehow, RJR Nabisco has always been fascinating, from beginning to now. There must be something about combining tobacco and Oreos that gets the imagination flowing; maybe its the combination of the country’s most regulated consumer product with the wonders of possibly the world’s favorite cookie. Heck, its birth even birthed a book and then, in…
How to Trigger Insurance Coverage for an ERISA Claim
Well, how can I not comment on this, given the focus of both this blog and my practice? The Second Circuit was just presented with the question of whether an insurer has to provide a defense to a company and its officer, under the employee benefits liability portion of a policy, for an ERISA claim…