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
Pensions
Looking Under the Hood of Pension Plan Investments
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Posted in Pensions, People are Talking . . .
Word comes to me today from Susan Mangiero, who pens the Pension Risk Matters blog (that phrase reminds me just a little of one of my favorite move phrases of all time, “a lot of alliteration from anxious anchors”), that I am quoted in an interesting article by Liz Peek in the New…
Why ERISA?
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Posted in Pensions
You know, people often get bogged down when talking about ERISA with the limitations of the statute and the protections it provides on the individual level; that is, to an extent, what the hullabaloo about the LaRue case is about, as it concerns the question of whether investment losses in a 401(k) plan are actionable if they…
Is Subprime the New Stock Drops?
By Stephen Rosenberg on
The consensus in the legal community, and I don’t think it is just because they are looking hopefully for a new flow of work, has for awhile now been that fund investment losses resulting from exposure to the subprime mortgage mess will eventually generate substantial ERISA related litigation. There are plenty of avenues for these…
ERISA, Investment Strategies and the Duty to Investigate
By Stephen Rosenberg on
ERISA litigation, particularly in the area of retirement benefits, is one of those areas of the law that can be particularly complicated because both the governing body of law and the underlying fact pattern to which it is applied can be tremendously complex. Take, for instance, the example of disputes over whether the fiduciaries of…
Number of Suits + Questionable Practices = X
By Stephen Rosenberg on
I have talked, certainly more than once, about the fact that the law governing fiduciary obligations in the realm of retirement plans is evolving, and most recently I commented on how it looks as though the Supreme Court is poised to weigh in on the direction of this evolution in the case law. Some of…
More on Whether Socially Conscious Investing Is a Breach of Fiduciary Duty
By Stephen Rosenberg on
I have raised before the question of whether so-called socially conscious investing would be a breach of fiduciary duty if undertaken by a pension plan or 401(k) fiduciary. The National Law Journal has a neat opinion piece by law professor Edward Zelinsky right now to the effect that it would be. Here’s a link…
Would Increasing Taxes on Hedge Fund Managers Harm Pension Plans?
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Posted in Pensions
Just a quick note on something you may not want to miss, while I work on something more elaborate and, to me, thought provoking to post either later today or on Monday; those of you interested in hedge funds and pension investments may want to take a look at this article in today’s New York…
401(k) Plans and Increasing Liability Risks for Fiduciaries
By Stephen Rosenberg on
Coming off the holiday weekend, I have a long list of items I want to pass on or talk about. I will try to put up as many as I can over the next few posts, to work through the backlog. I thought I would start with this one, because it ties two of the…
I Got Them Low Down No Good Pension Blues
By Stephen Rosenberg on
On the first Monday morning in August I expect things to lighten up with lots of people on vacation and the like, so I scheduled a breakfast meeting this morning right in the middle of one of Massachusetts’ most congested highways (well, not really in the middle of the highway, more like at a restaurant…