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
ERISA Statutory Provisions
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…
Predicting the Future of Church Plan Litigation
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Posted in Benefit Litigation, ERISA Statutory Provisions
Ahh, the wonders of church plan litigation. I had the distinct pleasure at an ERISA litigation conference recently of listening to a leading plaintiffs’ lawyer and a leading defense lawyer, who were both representing parties on opposite sides in class actions concerning whether benefit plans were actually church plans for purposes of ERISA, square off…
Why Amara’s Expansion of Remedies Matters Now, But Not So Much in the Long Term
My small group of dedicated twitter followers know I was live tweeting last week from ACI’s ERISA Litigation conference in New York, at least for the first day of the conference. Tweeting allowed me to pass along ideas from the speakers and my own thoughts on their points in real time, which was, frankly, a…
To Boldly Go Where No Class Action Plaintiff Has Gone Before: Church Plan Class Actions
By Stephen Rosenberg on
One of the interesting developments that caught my eye recently, and likely many of yours as well, was the filing of class action complaints challenging whether certain plans were, in fact, church plans for purposes of ERISA and thus, exempt from many of its requirements. This excellent paper on this development, by Wilber Boies and…
My Journal of Pension Benefits Article on Operational Competence after Amara
For years, in speeches and articles, I have preached the gospel of what I have come to call “defensive plan building,” which is the process of systemically building out plan documents, procedures and operations in manners that will limit the likelihood of a plan sponsor or fiduciary being sued while increasing the likelihood that, if…
How to Look Smart About McCutchen and Heimeshoff Without Really Trying
I have often joked that, to seem intelligent at social events, a person really just has to have two things handy – the first, a Noam Chomsky reference, and the second, a Shakespeare quote, preferably from a lesser play. If you are good, you can find a way to fit one or the other into…
And a Third Post on Tibble: Thoughts on Revenue Sharing and the Small Recovery for the Class
Tibble, the Ninth Circuit and the Scope of the 404(c) Defense
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Do they still teach administrative law in law school? I don’t know if they need to bother anymore, because the Ninth Circuit’s exposition of Chevron deference in Tibble, when discussing the 404(c) defense, pretty much sums up everything a practicing litigator needs to know about the subject. It is a first class explanation of…
They Are Called Prohibited for a Reason
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Posted in ERISA Statutory Provisions
We – meaning lawyers who do civil side work involving ERISA plans – mostly think about the rules against prohibited transactions from two perspectives. The first concerns whether clients can structure certain transactions or engage in specific plan actions without running afoul of the prohibited transaction rules. The second arises in litigation, where we either…