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
Fiduciaries
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…
Excessive Fees in 401(k) Plans: Its What You Do, Not Who You Know, That Counts
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Posted in Fiduciaries
I am a real big fan of this article here, on two recent rulings in major excessive fee 401(k) lawsuits, one against Wal-Mart and the other against Bechtel. While I haven’t read the rulings in those cases themselves yet, what I like about the rulings, at least as depicted in the article, is that…
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…
The Amateur Fiduciary
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Posted in Fiduciaries, Pensions
Geez, I hate to do this, but sometimes you have to play connect the dots. Reading this story about amateur (some would call it democratically run – small d, local government style) municipal pension plans and their investment strategies that got them caught up in the current collateralized debt obligation/securitization mess, I kept thinking to…
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…
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…
On Backdating, ERISA, and the Possibly Unintended Consequences of the Diamond Hypothetical
By Stephen Rosenberg on
If you have an interest in both ERISA and in well written, logical judicial opinions, I can’t recommend highly enough this opinion, by Judge Gertner of the United States District Court for Massachusetts, in Bendaoud v. Hodgson, deciding a number of issues at the motion to dismiss stage. I have a trial starting on…