On June 5, 2025, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s grant of summary judgment against two employees who had signed fiduciary liability releases in order to receive reduced severance benefits but later sued in a class action alleging the plan fiduciaries breached their duties in obtaining the
EBSA Beats IRS in Updating Its Correction Program for Self-Correction
Happy New Year! You may have noticed that December 29, 2024 came and went without the Internal Revenue System (“IRS”) issuing a new Employee Plans Compliance Resolution System (“EPCRS”) Revenue Procedure to incorporate the self-correction of eligible inadvertent failures in both qualified retirement plans and in IRAs.
Legislative Deadline Missed.
The IRS was directed
How Do You Like Them Apples?-The Second Circuit Requires Apples-to-Apples Comparison in Excessive Fee Complaints
On December 10, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld a lower court’s dismissal and denial of leave to file an amended complaint in a case against Deloitte LLP alleging that its retirement plan (Plan) fiduciaries breached their duty of prudence by allowing the Plan to pay excessive fees to
Recent Complaint Emphasizes Sponsor’s Need To Monitor Recordkeeping Fees
An ERISA class action suit recently filed in the United States District Court for the District of Arizona maintains the plan administrator breached its fiduciary duties by allowing participants to be charged unreasonable recordkeeping fees for years. Hagins et al v. Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc., 2022 CV 01835-MTM, October 26, 2022. The case demonstrates how
Fidelity’s Bitcoin Policy Questioned Directly By Senators
On July 26, Democratic Senators Dick Durbin, Elizabeth Warren, and Tina Smith sent a letter to Fidelity Investments CEO, Abigail Johnson, asking why Fidelity would allow plan sponsors to offer Bitcoin as an investment for plan participants. The Senators said, “it seems ill-advised for one of the leading names in the world of finance to
Crypto Provider Fights Back Against DOL Warning Guidance
On June 2, ForUsAll Inc. filed suit against the United States Department of Labor (DOL) in federal district court in D. C., over its latest soft guidance issued in March on the use of cryptocurrency investments (Crypto) in plans. Compliance Assistance Release No. 2022-01) Last June, ForUsAll Inc. became one of the first providers to
Why Would Anyone Invest In Crypto Through A Retirement Plan?
I’ll admit I don’t completely understand Cryptocurrencies or “Crypto” for short. And without wanting to sound immodest, I’m not unintelligent or inexperienced in the world of investments or employee benefits, business, or the law. Therefore, I will not try to explain it or how it works in this brief blog articles, there are plenty of
Ninth Circuit Applies Hughes v. Northwestern Supreme Court Standard In Overturning 2 Motion To Dismiss Cases-Or Did They?
In what appears to be the first Appellate Court decisions on what plaintiffs need to allege to defeat a motion to dismiss for failing to state a cause of action in an excessive fees case since the Supreme Court decided Hughes v. Nothwestern, (See Justices Make Short Work of Northwestern University’s Fiduciary Defense) the
Justices Make Short Work Of Northwestern University’s Fiduciary Defense
On January 24, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the dismissal of a suit brought by retirement plan participants against Northwestern University for breach of the
Biden Administration’s DOL Proposes Changes to Trump Administrations ESG Rules
In March of this year I wrote two blog articles on how the new Biden administration would not enforce and was likely going to change the Trump administration’s Department of Labor final rule on environmental, social, and govenrnance (ESG) investing in ERISA plans that became effective January 12, 2021. See “New President, New Hope