On April 17, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a unanimous opinion, resolved a circuit split and established a plaintiff-friendly pleading standard for ERISA prohibited transaction claims in Cunningham v. Cornell University,...more
4/30/2025
/ 401k ,
Appeals ,
Cunningham v Cornell University ,
Employee Benefits ,
ERISA Litigation ,
Fiduciary Duty ,
Motion to Dismiss ,
Pleading Standards ,
Prohibited Transactions ,
Retirement Plan ,
SCOTUS
In its recent decision in State of Utah v. Su, the Fifth Circuit remanded a challenge to the Department of Labor’s (DOL) environmental, social, and governance (ESG) rule for investing in defined contribution retirement plans...more
A New Jersey federal district court recently granted summary judgment in defendants’ favor in an ERISA excessive fee case accusing Evonik’s 401(k) plan fiduciaries of keeping imprudent investments in the plan and of allowing...more
The District Court for the Southern District of Iowa recently dismissed an ERISA putative class action lawsuit challenging 401(k) performance and fees after plan participants failed to identify appropriate benchmarks in their...more
Recently, in Davis v. Salesforce.com, a California district court dismissed for the second time claims alleging that the defendant 401(k) plan fiduciaries breached their ERISA fiduciary duties by retaining overpriced and...more
The Northern District of California dismissed with prejudice a lawsuit alleging a 401(k) plan’s sponsor and fiduciaries included unreasonably expensive funds in the plan’s investment lineup. The court previously dismissed...more
The Ninth Circuit recently affirmed the dismissal of an ERISA employer-stock drop putative class action, holding that the plaintiff’s failure to identify specific, viable alternative actions that plan fiduciaries should have...more
A class action alleging that BlackRock entities favored their own proprietary funds when selecting investment options for BlackRock’s 401(k) Plan is headed for trial after Judge Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr. denied both parties’...more