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
ERISA Statutory Provisions
Church Plan Litigation and My New Article On It
When courts first started tackling the new wave of suits challenging the church plan status of certain health care entities, I thought it an amusing curiosity, at best. I did grasp, however, the impetus from the perspective of the class action bar, which is that, if able to overturn the claimed exemptions of the defendants…
Q: Where Can You Sue an ERISA Plan? A: Where the Plan Sponsor Says
So the Sixth Circuit, in Smith v. Aegon, just ruled in favor of the enforceability of forum selection clauses in ERISA governed plans. Combined with the Supreme Court’s approval in Heimeshoff of contractual limitations in ERISA plans on the time period for filing suit, the approach of Smith basically hands control of the basic…
Tibble v. Edison at the Supreme Court
So, Tibble, Tibble, toil and trouble, to paraphrase (badly) Shakespeare (MacBeth, to be precise). And with that, I am going to launch into what I expect will be a number of posts concerning the Supreme Court’s decision to accept the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Tibble for review, limited to the application…
Santomenno v. John Hancock: Does It Matter That the 401(k) Service Provider Is Not a Fiduciary?
I wanted to comment at least briefly, or more accurately thematically, on the Third Circuit’s decision last week in Santomenno v. John Hancock, in which the Court held that John Hancock’s role as an advisor and service provider for a company 401(k) plan, by which it helped select fund options and administer participant investments…
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…
Why the Supreme Court Got It Right in Fifth Third Bancorp v. Dudenhoeffer
So, where do we even begin with Fifth Third Bancorp v. Dudenhoeffer, which is, first, a fascinating decision and, second, one that has already inspired countless stories in both the legal and financial media? I thought I would begin by passing along some of the better commentary I have come across in the wake…
What Happens to Company Owners Who Get Overaggressive When Selling Out to an ESOP?
Just what is it about Chicago and ESOPs? Is it something in the water, redolent of gangsters and Al Capone? First, there was the Sam Zell/Tribune ESOP transaction, which, as I wrote before, was such a complex transaction that, building it around the ownership interests of the employees could not help but raise…
What if Trust Law Cannot Support the Moench Presumption?
The “stock drop” presumption of Moench, now before the Supreme Court in Fifth Third Bancorp, is best understood as a judicial attempt to balance the sometimes conflicting demands placed on corporate insiders by, on the one hand, the securities laws and, on the other, ERISA, when it comes to employee stock plans in…
What Rochow Teaches Us About Amara Remedies, and What It Doesn’t
You know, I have been wanting to sit down for weeks – at least – to write about Rochow v. Life Insurance Company of America, initially with regard to the extraordinary remedy initially imposed by the court and then later with regard to the Sixth Circuit’s decision to return to the issue by hearing…