Sometimes the Zeitgeist is hard to read, other times it hits you smack in the face with a two by four. As we move towards the end of the year (the business year anyway, as we all know how much work actually gets done between Christmas eve and New Year’s day), the constant drumbeat of
401(k) Plans
Back Again at the Crossroads of Securities Law and ERISA
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Posted in 401(k) Plans, Fiduciaries
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…
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…
You Say Securities Law, I Say ERISA
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Posted in 401(k) Plans, Fiduciaries
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
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Posted in 401(k) Plans, 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…
Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Pity the Poor Fiduciary, Trapped Between the Securities Laws and ERISA
By Stephen Rosenberg on
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…
LaRue, The Postscript
By Stephen Rosenberg on
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…
TARP and ERISA Litigation
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Here’s an interesting looking and timely webinar from West next week on the stock market meltdown, the bank bailout, and their effect on ERISA governed plans. The short version of their pitch for the webinar, which ought to be in 20 point type spread across a banner headline, is “here come the breach of fiduciary…
To Be or Not to Be (a Fiduciary, That Is)
By Stephen Rosenberg on
I talked about a case last week that addressed the damages aspect of making out a breach of fiduciary duty claim related to stock drop type issues, and pointed out the broad, ambiguous and easy to manipulate nature of a damages claim in that scenario. Another case last week, also out of the United States…
Joshua Itzoe on Fixing the 401(k)
By Stephen Rosenberg on
In an odd coincidence, at the same time Wall Street has been imploding, laying bare valuation and other problems with investments in retirement plans and elsewhere, I happen to have been reading independent fiduciary/401(k) advisor Joshua Itzoe’s book, Fixing the 401(k), which is premised on the idea that 401(k) plans are compromised by inherent…