The US Department of Labor’s new fiduciary rule is aimed at financial advisors, including brokers, who provide retirement plan services. However, the new rule will impact compliance obligations and potentially, costs for plan sponsors, as highlighted in the following presentation.
In the last several months, plaintiffs have filed multiple class action lawsuits against plan sponsors, plan fiduciaries and stable value fund providers. These lawsuits, which have involved 401(k) plans sponsored by large corporations, have alleged that:
These lawsuits have also included allegations that plan fiduciaries breached their fiduciary duties of loyalty and prudence under ERISA by:
Plan sponsors and plan fiduciaries face a particularly difficult bind with respect to the offering of a stable value investment option as, ironically, they have been challenged for offering stable value funds and equally fornot offering them. For example, in addition to the stable value fund allegations described above, plaintiffs have sued some plans for failing to offer stable value funds, because money market funds—a fixed income investment alternative—have produced historically low returns. In fact, such lawsuits note that most large 401(k) plans offer stable value funds and criticize plan sponsors for their failure to conform.
As a result of this wave of lawsuits, plan sponsors and plan fiduciaries should evaluate the process they use to decide to invest in stable value funds, as well as the process they use to monitor investment management and recordkeeping fees more generally. Plan sponsors and plan fiduciaries must carefully select expert investment advisers and understand the expert’s advice before applying it. Plan fiduciaries that do not currently offer a stable value investment option should examine their fund lineups to ensure that the lineups provide an adequate fixed income investment at a reasonable cost to plan participants.
In addition, plan sponsors and plan fiduciaries should establish and maintain an investment policy, which they should use to rigorously monitor investment options and related fees. Plan fiduciaries should also document the process for making fiduciary decisions and be able to demonstrate that they considered quality, service and price in selecting and monitoring investment options. This documentation of the investment selection and monitoring process is crucial to defending against the recent onslaught of stable value fund and other related lawsuits.
The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit’s recent ruling addresses various issues that could arise during a plan administrator’s review of a participant’s benefit claim and appeal and any ensuing litigation, including the deference to be granted upon review in a federal court, civil penalties and the possibility of introducing additional evidence outside the administrative record. This decision demonstrates the need for employers to review their benefit plans’ claims procedures to ensure they comply with applicable law and best practices.
After more than five years of development and revision, the US Department of Labor (DOL) released final regulations to redefine a “fiduciary” under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, as amended (ERISA) and the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended (the Code).
Since 2014, large church-controlled health systems that offer defined benefit pension plans have seen lawsuits filed as to whether such plans are eligible to qualify for the ERISA church-plan exemption, which governs those arrangements. When a retirement plan meets the ERISA church-plan exemption, it is exempt from the typical funding and vesting requirements of ERISA and the Internal Revenue Code as well as from the ERISA reporting and disclosure requirements. As the church-plan litigation moves to the appellate level, two adverse decisions are reached denying ERISA church-plan exemption to two health systems.
For the first time, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is suing private employers on behalf of employees alleging sexual orientation discrimination. On March 1, 2016, the EEOC issued a press release announcing it has filed its first two sexual orientation lawsuits alleging violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII).
Despite the fact that Personally Identifiable Information (PII) definitions are continuously broadening with the addition of new data elements, and proposed federal legislation aims to reconcile state laws, security breach threats remain.
Review the full presentation here.
Ten short years ago, revenue sharing seemingly presented a “win win” opportunity for third-party administrators (TPAs) and defined contribution plan sponsors. TPAs generally retained all revenue sharing payments received from plans’ investment fund companies in exchange for administrative services provided to the investment funds. In recognition of the revenue sharing received from the investment fund companies, TPAs often provided “free” plan administrative services to plan sponsors. Starting in the mid-2000s, however, more plan sponsors began to question the amount of money received by the TPAs under this arrangement, and plaintiffs’ lawyers and the DOL began to monitor and scrutinize revenue sharing.
This article summarizes the evolution of revenue sharing over the past ten years and examines its future through the lens of the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Tibble v. Edison and the subsequent uptick in 401(k) fee litigation.
On January 25, 2016, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a per curiam opinion in Amgen Inc. v. Harris, holding that the Amgen, Inc. employees who filed suit after the value of the employer stock in which they had invested dramatically decreased, failed to sufficiently plead a breach of fiduciary duty claim under ERISA in light of the Court’s decision last term in Fifth Third Bancorp v. Dudenhoeffer.
Compliance with the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has resulted in increased health benefit costs for many employers. A recent court decision demonstrates that while programs to reduce the number of full-time employees may lower health care costs in the short run, they also may lead to ERISA class action litigation. In Marin v. Dave and Buster’s, a federal district judge in the Southern District of New York denied a motion to dismiss a class action lawsuit claiming that the Dave and Buster’s amusement chain violated ERISA by cutting employee hours to avoid providing health care benefits to a class of employees.
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