Lots going on, lots to talk about. Let’s start with this one, which, coincidentally, allows me to kill two birds with one stone. You may recall that some time back I mentioned that I had come across two interesting blogs that I wanted to pass along, one of which was The Float, covering primarily
Pensions
Back to the Well: Fiduciaries and Subprime Assets
By Stephen Rosenberg on
I guess this is the flip side of all the grief that is starting to come down on fiduciaries for excessive – or at least what seems to plaintiffs’ lawyers to be excessive in hindsight – exposure to the subprime mortgage mess in pension and 401(k) holdings: pension plan fiduciaries now adding such exposure to…
Supreme Court and Qualified Domestic Relations Orders
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Posted in ERISA Statutory Provisions, Pensions
Interestingly, right after I posted about Albert Feuer’s detailed analysis of the proper role of Qualified Domestic Relations Orders (“QDRO”) in the ERISA scheme, the Supreme Court granted cert in a case on that exact issue (although I don’t intend to imply a causal relationship between the two events). The Court granted cert yesterday in…
Alienation of ERISA Governed Benefits
By Stephen Rosenberg on
I’ve had an interesting collection of educational materials and seminars piling up on my desk for awhile now, a number of which may be of interest to various readers of this blog. In the hope of both clearing up that backlog and passing along useful information, I am going to start a short series of…
I Want My (Pension Tension Blues) MTV
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Posted in Fiduciaries, Pensions
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…
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…
The Recent History of Subprime Litigation
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Kevin LaCroix, at his D&O Diary blog, has a tremendous history of the recent filing of subprime litigation, including class actions, many filed under ERISA. While I don’t necessarily agree with each of his interpretations of that history, it’s as good an overview of the subject as a whole that I have seen in any…
The First Circuit on an Administrator’s Discretion in Determining the Amount of Retirement Benefits
Oddly, this appears to be “calculating benefits” week among the courts of the First Circuit. In addition to the LeBlanc case I discussed in the last post, the First Circuit just ruled on a case involving a challenge to the calculation of pension benefits. Just as in the LeBlanc case, where a district court found…
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…