I didn’t intend to write a second post (here’s the first) on the ever rising tide of excessive fee litigation, but the LinkedIn algorithm, responding to my posting of my first blog post on this issue, hand delivered me another great graphic, this one by Sompo International, on the same topic. What I
This is a great and well-illustrated presentation by Chubb on the history of excessive fee litigation against sponsors of defined contribution retirement plans, on the pace of filings, on the types and sizes of plans that are being sued and on settlements of those claims. What you can see in the data is something that
Interestingly enough, the Supreme Court’s decision last week in Montanile v. Board of Trustees of the National Elevator Industry Health Benefit Plan is about the least complicated ERISA decision any court has issued in years. You know how I know that? The number of posts, tweets and articles published within days by law firms and
This is so simple, its brilliant, and so brilliant, its simple – or something like that. The “this” I am talking about is the idea of appointing a Chief Retirement Officer, or CRO, as is discussed – and proposed – in Steff Chalk’s article, “The Advent of the Chief Retirement Officer,” in the
When you read in the paper about a large settlement in an excessive fee case or other claim involving a 401(k), ESOP or other ERISA governed plan, do you think about what happens next, and about how to distribute the money among the plan participants? I do, in cases where I have represented the class
One of the first long articles I wrote on ERISA (I had already penned some opuses on patent infringement litigation and insurance coverage disputes) was on excessive fee litigation, and was based, at heart, on the Seventh Circuit’s then recent decision in Hecker v. Deere. Titled “Retreat from the High Water Mark: Breach
Roy Harmon and the Workplace Prof have the story of a severely injured worker whose settlement with the tortfeasor was effectively taken, in its entirety, by the plan administrator – Wal-Mart – on a reimbursement claim in accordance with the administrator’s rights under Sereboff. Roy Harmon has a nice factual discussion of the problem
My colleague, Carl Pilger, cpilger@millermartin.com, who counsels companies and others on the design, implementation and operation of employee benefit plans at Miller & Martin PLLC, http://www.millermartin.com/, in Atlanta, notes that in settling lawsuits brought by plan participants, one should avoid establishing a pattern of revising a particular plan term or requirement in a