Well, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has affirmed the District Court’s well-crafted opinion in Tibble v. Edison. I discussed the District Court’s opinion in detail in my article on excessive fee claims, Retreat From the High Water Mark. From a precedential perspective, as well as from the point
401(k) Plans
Cut the Deficit, Not 401(k)s
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Posted in 401(k) Plans
I was somewhat stunned – and frankly, to some extent angered – by this article yesterday in Slate, in which a business school professor asserts that, if research from Holland does not support the idea that tax breaks motivate savings, one should do away with the 401(k). This completely misses the point that, in a…
Amnesty and the Fee Disclosure Regulations
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Posted in 401(k) Plans, Employee Benefit Plans
I like this piece here on the question of whether investment and financial advisors who foul up their initial efforts to comply with the fee disclosure regulations should be given a mulligan, and allowed to effectively self-report and correct without penalty. The proposal is to have the Department of Labor essentially run yet another type…
Small Employers and the Problem of Plan Compliance
By Stephen Rosenberg on
I often think of the story of the cobbler’s kids having no shoes when I read about problems in a law firm’s benefit plan; lawyers spend their time fixing other people’s business problems, often to the exclusion of paying attention to their own business issues. Festering problems in a law firm’s 401(k) or other benefit…
The Zeitgeist of Chris Carosa
By Stephen Rosenberg on
I used to be a fan, back in the old days when The New Republic was actually meaningful and influential, of its zeitgeist table, as it really did, in a glance, sum up what people were thinking and talking about, albeit in a humorous way. I couldn’t help but think of that this morning when…
A Bunch of Cliches About Scary Things (Or a Few Words on Why Fee Disclosure Isn’t Scary)
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Here’s a very nice piece on fee disclosure, as mandated by the Department of Labor, and the idea that it is to everyone’s benefit. I have long maintained that fee disclosure of the type at issue falls squarely in the ballpark of the old saying that sunshine is the best disinfectant, and that…
Plan Administrators and the Risk of Personal Liability: A Primer
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Often when I chat with middle and upper level managers of mid-size and larger companies who have been assigned the job of administering their employer’s 401(k), ESOP or other benefit plans, I wonder if they are fully cognizant of the risks of personal liability they are taking on, and whether they have made sure that…
On the Other Hand, There May Not Be Any Structural Impediments to Breach of Fiduciary Duty Class Actions in the Sixth Circuit
By Stephen Rosenberg on
An astute and clearly knowledgeable reader passed along the point that the recent Sixth Circuit decision in Pfeil v. State Street Bank implicitly rejected the structural barriers to bringing class actions over fiduciary breaches that had been created by the developing case law in other circuits and which were discussed in my recent article, Structural…
The Dam Breaks: Tussey v. ABB
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Tussey v ABB, Inc., an excessive fee and revenue sharing case decided on the last day of March after a full trial before the United States District Court for the District of Western Missouri, is a remarkable decision, imposing extensive liability for acts involving the costs of and revenue sharing for a major…
Structural Impediments to Breach of Fiduciary Duty Claims
By Stephen Rosenberg on
As many of you know, I write a regular column on ERISA litigation for Aspen’s Journal of Pension Benefits, usually focused on whatever issue has my attention at the moment, although I try to balance that against what readers might have an interest in as well. When it came time to write my article for…