Susan Mangiero, who brings expertise in finance and investments to the discussion over the propriety of various investments in defined contribution plans and whether their presence in a plan can support a claim for breach of fiduciary duty, has written this interesting post on the issue I discussed here, namely the role of
Fiduciaries
Live Blogging from Bentley College . . .
Live blogging is usually used to mean that someone is attending a seminar and putting up posts about it while there. I mean it differently, that I will be talking live, about the topics I regularly address in my blog posts, at this seminar on May 10 hosted by Asset Strategy Consultants-Boston. The seminar is…
Playing Hot Potato With Employer Stock
This is an interesting piece on one of the most loaded issues in ERISA litigation, namely the potential personal liability of corporate officers who run a company’s benefit plans, in particular their defined contribution plans, such as 401(k)s or ESOPs. The article drives home the fact that when CFOs or other officers are named as…
What Exactly is the Investment Drag of Macaroni and Cheese?
This is interesting – it’s the story, in abbreviated form, of the Seventh Circuit breathing new life into an excessive fee class action case, by finding that there is a factual question of whether the fiduciaries properly evaluated their options and that the defendants cannot insulate themselves easily from their obligation to properly monitor…
Fiduciary Definitions Change Hand in Hand with the Real World
One underlying theme of much commentary about 401(k) plans is the idea that their replacement of pensions as the primary retirement vehicle for most private sector workers was not intended, and is the walking, talking example of the law of unintended consequences. Seen as it was in its origin myth – as a supplemental retirement…
Adam and John on the Obligations of Reasonableness and the Problems with SPDs, Respectively
Well, geez, I am embarrassed by the awkward silence in this space over the past couple of weeks. I was out of the country on business for a bit, and digging out ever since. Not that I ever lost sight of the ball, though, as I kept jotting down stories and developments that I wanted…
Class Actions, the Diamond Hypothetical and the Seventh Circuit
I have written before about the various implications of the Supreme Court broadening fiduciary duty claims in LaRue to allow individual participants to sue for losses only to their own accounts, rather than just for harms suffered by all participants, or in other words, by the plan as a whole; among other aspects, I have…
The Ever Evolving Risks of Fiduciaries
Well, I am not sure I could have said this better myself, although in post after post, I have spoken of the increasing litigation risk for fiduciaries, and of the need to respond by emphasizing compliance and diligence in designing and running 401(k) plans. At the end of the day, ERISA has become a fertile…
On Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest
In my life as a trial lawyer, I have found myself in a recurrent situation, in which a judge or an arbitrator eventually looks at me in an argument over discovery and asks if I really want the information I am after, as it could run against me. I always answer the same way, to…
Interview in Fiduciary News
I have written before, on many occasions, about the evolving nature of fiduciary status, and in particular on the shifting regulatory landscape in this regard. Here is an interview I gave to Fiduciary News on the latest proposed Department of Labor regulatory change concerning the meaning of the word fiduciary in the ERISA context. If…