This is an interesting story on a number of levels, about the GM pension plan, its size, GM’s efforts to reduce the size of its liabilities, and the company’s decision to transfer administration and future costs to a certain extent to a large insurer. GM and its pension plan have continued to be one of
Pensions
Pricey Investments, Poor Outcomes
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Posted in Pensions
All I can think of is the cliche from Casablanca: I am shocked, shocked. The whole story, if you don’t want to use up one of your free articles on the NY Times website, is summed up on the front page of the website and the paper today:
Pensions Find Riskier Funds Fail to
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A Perfect Storm, ERISA Style
By Stephen Rosenberg on
This is not, at this point, a novel idea, but I do take credit for being one of the first to blog regularly on the thesis that we are approaching, if haven’t by now already hit, a perfect storm when it comes to retirement benefits and ERISA. The perfect storm consists of a series of…
The Very Interesting Lessons of Novella
By Stephen Rosenberg on
The Second Circuit these days is the gift that just keeps on giving when it comes to ERISA litigation, and for that matter to blogging about ERISA litigation. Following up hard on the heels of its thorough and legitimately interesting opinion on employer stock drop litigation in Citigroup and McGraw-Hill, the court issued this…
Zen and the Art of Pension Plan Maintenance
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Posted in Pensions
Well, I don’t know. Could privately run pension plans get away with this type of planning, or would they be running smack dab into breach of fiduciary duty lawsuits? I doubt a fiduciary could get away with pie in the sky projections intended to support current pension math, and I wouldn’t want to be…
Looking Under the Hood at Public Pension Obligations Isn’t Pretty
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Posted in Pensions
There is almost nothing I can add to this extremely sad story two days before Christmas, other than to point out that, for the criticism ERISA takes for preemption and its limited scope of remedies, the structure has done a pretty good job of accomplishing its true initial goal, which was to keep private pension…
On the Ticking Time Bomb of Public Pension Plans
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Posted in Pensions
Wow. When I saw this article about the questionable investment assumptions and increasingly risky investment choices being pursued by public pension plans, the first thing that jumped into my head was the old Yogi Berra line that “in baseball, you don’t know nothing." It seems to hold true for at least some of…
Here’s What the Court Will Do In Conkright v. Frommert
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Alright, here we go on Conkright v. Frommert, which will be argued at the Supreme Court on Wednesday. SCOTUS has the full run down of the case and what is at issue right here, and long time ERISA blogger Paul Secunda has an amici brief before the Court on the core issue, which…
Marx on 401(k) Litigation
By Stephen Rosenberg on
I have a stack of substantive ERISA matters that I have been trying to post on for the last week or two, and I am going to try to work through them over the next few weeks. The thing about a blog, though, is the world keeps on spinning, and each day you find something…
On Fiduciary Liability Insurance
I have written before that one of the things that makes insurance coverage law interesting is the fact that almost every trend in liability or litigation eventually shows back up in insurance disputes, in a sort of fun house mirror sort of way. Whether it is corporate exposure for asbestos liabilities, or the sudden invention…