News & Analysis as of

Duty of Loyalty Environmental Social & Governance (ESG)

Troutman Pepper Locke

Texas Federal Court Allows an ERISA Fiduciary Challenge Against Alleged "ESG Investing" Without Any ESG Funds

Troutman Pepper Locke on

On January 10, 2025, in Spence v. American Airlines, a federal district court in Texas ruled that American Airlines (the company) and the committee overseeing its 401(k) plans (the committee) breached their duty of loyalty...more

Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart,...

Do You Really Want to Be an ERISA Fiduciary?

Two recent class action lawsuits charging a breach of fiduciary duty under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) have increased the stakes and raised important considerations regarding a plan fiduciary’s duty of...more

Verrill

Spence v. American Airlines: A Texas Court’s View of the Duty of Loyalty under ERISA

Verrill on

Since we last discussed environmental, social, and corporate governance (“ESG”) developments in the context of ERISA retirement plans, ESG litigation has taken a rather unexpected turn. Although the plan lineup in Spence v....more

Fenwick & West LLP

Judge Finds American Airlines Breached its Fiduciary Duty of Loyalty by Allowing Investment Manager to Prioritize ESG Goals with...

Fenwick & West LLP on

On January 10, 2025, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas found that American Airlines and its employee benefit committee (EBC) breached their fiduciary duty of loyalty under the Employee Retirement...more

Proskauer - Employee Benefits & Executive...

401(k) Plan Fiduciaries Breached ERISA’s Duty of Loyalty By Allowing ESG Interests To Influence Management Of The Plan

Last week, Judge Reed O’Connor of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, issued the first-of-its-kind ruling on the merits pertaining to environmental, social, and corporate governance (“ESG”) investing...more

Miller Canfield

American Airlines Breaches Fiduciary Duty of Loyalty with BlackRock ESG Funds in 401(k) Plans

Miller Canfield on

Whether, and the extent to which, a plan fiduciary can consider nonpecuniary environmental, social and governance (“ESG”) objectives in selecting plan investments has been a hot-button issue for many years, with the view on...more

Ropes & Gray LLP

Practical Takeaways from Spence v. American Airlines, Inc. for ERISA Plan Fiduciaries

Ropes & Gray LLP on

On January 10, 2025, Judge Reed O’Connor of the Northern District of Texas issued a much-anticipated ruling in Spence v. American Airlines, Inc., which marks the first time that a federal judge has written an on-the-merits...more

Mintz

Federal Court Rules ESG-Guided Investing of 401(k) Plan Is a Breach of Fiduciary Duty

Mintz on

Following a bench trial, Judge O'Connor (N.D. Tex.) held that “that Defendants breached their fiduciary duty by failing to loyally act solely in the retirement plan's best financial interests by allowing their corporate...more

Snell & Wilmer

SEC Division of Examinations Priorities for 2025: Examinations Will Prioritize New Rules for Form PF and Regulation S-P, Fiduciary...

Snell & Wilmer on

On October 21, 2024, the Division of Examinations (the “Division”) of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) issued its annual examination priorities for fiscal year 2025. As with its 2024 examination...more

Proskauer - Employee Benefits & Executive...

[Podcast] DOL’s 2022 Final ESG Rules

In this episode of The Proskauer Benefits Brief, Proskauer partners Ira Bogner and Adam Scoll and law clerk Tanusha Yarlagadda discuss the Department of Labor’s final ESG rules issued on November 22, 2022, and how those rules...more

Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck

ESG and Political Climate Changes

PREPARING FOR THE INCREASINGLY COMPLEX MAZE OF STATE-LEVEL REGULATIONS REGARDING ESG-BASED INVESTMENTS  - Amid growing interest by some investment managers to consider environmental implications and anticipated regulatory...more

Proskauer - Minding Your Business

Defining a “Good Faith” Director: Key Takeaways from Recent Court Rulings on Corporate Board Oversight

Corporate boards are subject to a duty of oversight, as part of their duty of loyalty to their company.  As outlined by Delaware’s famously stringent Caremark standard, pleading a violation of that duty is often difficult....more

Morgan Lewis - ML Benefits

DOL Announces Nonenforcement Policy for New ESG and Proxy Voting Rules

In a somewhat expected development, the US Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) issued an enforcement statement on Wednesday announcing that it will not enforce the recently published final...more

Bracewell LLP

ESG Investing and Retirement Plans

Bracewell LLP on

Background - As ESG (environmental, social and governance) investing recently has drawn the attention of governmental agencies that oversee the administration of qualified retirement plans and their trillions of dollars...more

Goodwin

Department Of Labor Finalizes Regulation Requiring Fiduciary Investment Decisions To Be Based Solely On Pecuniary Factors

Goodwin on

On October 30, 2020, the Department of Labor (“DOL”) released its final amended regulation on investment duties under Section 404(a)(1)(A) and (B) of ERISA. The final regulation substantially reworks the DOL’s original...more

Burr & Forman

DOL Updates Factors For Selecting Plan Investments

Burr & Forman on

On October 30, 2020, the U.S. Department of Labor (the “DOL”) released a Final Rule to “provide clear regulatory guideposts for fiduciaries of private-sector retirement and other employee benefit plans in light of recent...more

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP

The “Pecuniary” Rule: A Roadmap for Navigating the DOL’s Final Rule on Financial Factors in Selecting Plan Investments

The Department of Labor (DOL) has issued a final rule to revise its existing rule regarding financial factors in selecting plan investments. We discussed the proposed rule in an earlier article, and this article provides a...more

Goodwin

U.S. Department of Labor Issues Proposed Regulation on Environmental, Social & Governance Investing

Goodwin on

On June 23, 2020, the U.S. Department of Labor issued a proposal to regulate the use of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) strategies by investment fiduciaries under ERISA. The proposal, if finalized, would be the...more

Perkins Coie

2019 Corporate Governance Hot Topics

Perkins Coie on

The following update highlights recent corporate governance hot topics and trends for directors of public companies. Board Oversight of Mission-Critical Risks - In June 2019, the Delaware Supreme Court allowed a Caremark...more

19 Results
 / 
View per page
Page: of 1

"My best business intelligence, in one easy email…"

Your first step to building a free, personalized, morning email brief covering pertinent authors and topics on JD Supra:
*By using the service, you signify your acceptance of JD Supra's Privacy Policy.
- hide
- hide