For better or worse, I’m old enough to remember where I was when MTV debuted, back when it actually played music videos. I am sure there is something to be said about the fact that a quarter century later, I now watch music videos about fiduciary risks concerning pensions, but I am not sure
Fiduciaries
The Benefits of Relying On Investment Managers
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Posted in 401(k) Plans, Fiduciaries
We all know that in reality, most companies that sponsor retirement plans, including 401(k)s, for their employees bring in outside advisors to manage the plan. There are at least two primary reasons for this, the first being that most companies don’t have the expertise to select investments and otherwise run plans themselves, and hope to…
LaRue is Decided . . . Well, Sort of
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Posted in 401(k) Plans, Fiduciaries
In an opinion it issued on Monday, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit confronted essentially the exact same facts and issues as are at play in the LaRue case currently pending before the Supreme Court, and effectively entered its own prediction as to how the Supreme Court will rule in LaRue…
The Governance of Retirement Plans in the Aftermath of the Subprime Meltdown
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Fellow blogger Susan Mangiero and I are quoted extensively in a very interesting article, available here, in the January issue of the Institutional Real Estate Letter. The article, titled Investing in Good Governance, focuses on one of – if not the only – potential silver linings in the whole subprime mortgage mess, namely the…
Researching Pension Related Litigation
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Posted in Fiduciaries, Pensions
Dying is easy, comedy is hard? No, ERISA is hard. I tell people all the time that there is almost no such thing as a simple answer to an ERISA related question, or at least no such thing as a straightforward answer. There are entire chapters in ERISA treatises dedicated to the seemingly, but…
SmartMoney on the Practicalities of Complying With ERISA
By Stephen Rosenberg on
This is a law oriented blog, obviously, and one of the things that is always worth remembering is that the complicated legal issues played out in the cases discussed here have real world implications for plan participants and for businesses trying to provide benefits to their employees. A nice reminder of that is here,…
On Regulation of Fiduciaries and Pension Plan Vendors
By Stephen Rosenberg on
I was interviewed by a reporter recently concerning the subprime mess and its implications for pension plan fiduciaries, and the issue came up as to whether further regulation was the answer, as she had heard from a number of others. To me, the ongoing problem we are seeing with fiduciary breaches – or at least…
Talkin’ With Tom Gies, Counsel for the Respondents in LaRue
By Stephen Rosenberg on
I promised awhile back that I would run more interviews at some point on this blog, and we return today to our – granted, somewhat sporadic – series of interviews with movers and shakers in the worlds of ERISA and insurance. What provoked me to get back into the interviewing business, which I noted before…
Protecting Corporate Officers from Fiduciary Exposure
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Here’s an interesting article on one particular aspect of ERISA breach of fiduciary duty cases, namely the targeting as defendants of executive officers of the company sponsoring a pension or 401(k) plan; the gist of the article is that there are tactical and psychological benefits that accrue to counsel representing plan participants when they name…
More on that Grand Irony Theory
Does the fact pattern below allow for a remedy under ERISA, particularly as the Sereboff/equitable relief line of cases has been interpreted in the First Circuit to date?
The plaintiff employee says that she purchased a life insurance policy on her husband through her employer’s group coverage. When her husband was dying, she resigned
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