Podcast - An Overview of State Attorney General Consumer Protection Enforcement
The Current State of the Holder Rule: Friend or Foe? — Moving the Metal: The Auto Finance Podcast
Regulatory Rollback: Legal Challenges and Opportunities in Earned-Wage Access — Payments Pros – The Payments Law Podcast
Doc Fees Decoded: The Price of Paperwork in Auto Sales — Moving the Metal: The Auto Finance Podcast
Podcast - New Guidance on Complying with FTC Rule on Deceptive and Unfair Fees
Under the Hood: Exploring the CFPB's 2025 Focus — Moving the Metal: The Auto Finance Podcast
Consumer Finance Monitor Podcast Episode: Private Civil Consumer Financial Services Litigation to Partially Fill CFPB Void - Part 2
Requiem for the Rules: The Rise and Fall of the Junk Fee and CARS Rules — Moving the Metal: The Auto Finance Podcast
The FTC and Connecticut Join Forces for Action Against Nissan Dealer
Consumer Finance Monitor Podcast Episode: A Close Look at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Proposed Rules on Overdraft and Nonsufficient Funds Fees
Consumer Finance Monitor Podcast Episode: The Federal Trade Commission: Looking Back at 2023 and Looking Ahead to 2024 and Beyond
An In-Depth Analysis of the CFPB’s Proposed Overdraft Rule - The Consumer Finance Podcast
The FTC Takes Initiative to Stop Junk Fees
Consumer Finance Monitor Podcast Episode: The Biden Admin “Junk Fees” Initiative Continues: What the Latest Actions Mean for the Consumer Financial Services and Rental Housing Industries, Pt 1
AD Nauseam: Junk Fees Will Keep Us Together
CFPB’s War on Junk Fees - The Consumer Finance Podcast
Recent Tenth Circuit Decision in John Q Hammons Fall Following SCOTUS’ Decision in Siegel v. Fitzgerald Could Result in Significant Refunds for Certain Chapter 11 Debtors
The Constitutionality of Increased Trustee Fees In Bankruptcy
2BInformed: The Future of Fluoride in Drinking Water, the New TSCA Fees Rule, and the Drinking Water Contaminant Candidate List 5
Immigration Insights Podcast: International Entrepreneur Parole Program & Biometrics Requirement
Here we go again. Another jumbo 401(k) plan, another lawsuit, another round of alleged fiduciary misconduct that reads like a broken record for those of us who’ve been watching this space since before fee disclosure was a...more
A massive new study by Abernathy-Daley covering nearly 58,000 corporate 401(k) plans delivered a simple—but startling—message: virtually every plan suffers from overpriced, underperforming funds. In fact, 99% of plans have at...more
Vanguard’s latest report makes a blunt point: allowing collective investment trusts (CITs) in 403(b) plans could save the median plan participant about 0.08% to 0.09% annually compared to mutual fund fees—translating into...more
The just-released 25th Edition of the 401k Averages Book confirms what many of us on the fiduciary side have known—and preached—for years: fees continue to fall, but not evenly. While this is welcome news, it’s also a wake-up...more
Empower recently made headlines by announcing a bold new initiative: giving defined contribution (DC) retirement plan participants access to private market investments. On the surface, it sounds like a win—more choice,...more
When it comes to health and fitness, you constantly hear studies about what foods fight or cause cancer. Of course, those studies are then debunked. I remember how oat bran was cited to cut down on cholesterol and how...more
Fiduciaries of 401(k) and other retirement plans continue to be targeted by class action lawsuits brought under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) challenging fiduciary decisions regarding investment options...more
Competing plan providers hear it all the time from prospective clients all the time, about how their current provider would never overcharge them. Unless a plan sponsor benchmarks the fee they are being charged (which is...more
Registered investment advisers, including dual registrant broker-dealers (collectively “advisers”) who provide discretionary investment management services to individual retirement accounts (IRAs), are fiduciaries under the...more
On Friday, the Ninth Circuit became the first circuit court to rule in a 401(k) plan fee and investment litigation following the Supreme Court’s January 2022 decision in Hughes v. Northwestern University, 142 S. Ct. 737...more
It started sometime last year and, in hindsight, was inevitable. Clients with 401(k) plans and a crypto-savvy employee population began asking whether they could offer cryptocurrency as a plan investment option. In the...more
On January 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down an important decision affecting plan fiduciaries who select investment options available to participants in a self-directed employee retirement plan (such as a 401(k)...more
On January 24, 2022, in a rare, unanimous 8-0 decision (Justice Barrett recused herself from the case), the Supreme Court of the United States (the “Supreme Court”) vacated a Seventh Circuit affirmation of the dismissal of...more
In Hughes v. Northwestern University, current and former participants in Northwestern University's defined-contribution retirement plans filed litigation on behalf of the plans' participants asserting that the University, its...more
Just this month, the Supreme Court issued its much anticipated decision in Northwestern University, the first time the Court has been called upon to examine a lawsuit alleging that a 401(k) plan’s investment and fees were...more
Since the first round of cases were filed in 2006, plaintiffs’ counsel have raised hundreds of lawsuits challenging the prudence of fees and investments in 401(k) plans. One of the critical issues in those cases is what needs...more
The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling this week in Hughes v. Northwestern University will do nothing to stem the rising tide of retirement plan fee litigation. But the ruling doesn’t mean fiduciary breach claims are more likely to...more
KEY TAKEAWAYS - ..Plan fiduciaries have a duty of prudence to independently evaluate on an ongoing basis investments offered in a plan’s menu of options and remove any imprudent ones. ..Plan participants’ ultimate...more
In recent years, participants in 401(k) and similar employer-sponsored retirement plans have filed class action suits alleging that the plans contain overly expensive investment options. On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court...more
Monday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Hughes v. Northwestern University, No. 19-1401, just one of about 150 similar class action suits filed around the country in the last few years. The case was brought by...more
The District Court for the Southern District of Ohio recently dismissed an ERISA putative class action lawsuit asserting fiduciary duty claims based on allegations of unreasonably high administrative fees and relatively...more
A federal district court in New York recently granted Omnicom Group Inc.’s (“Omnicom’s”) motion to dismiss, for lack of Article III standing, claims challenging the offering of investment options in Omnicom’s 401(k) plan in...more
Multiple new lawsuits have been filed since the start of 2020. Complications caused by the Coronavirus have not slowed the onslaught of 401(k) fee litigation across the country. Last month, Teva Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. was...more
There are several fundamental principles and concepts that governmental plan sponsors and fiduciaries need to bear in mind as they select and monitor their plan providers and the fees that these providers charge....more
I always say that you have better chances not getting caught by robbing a bank than you do by stealing money as a plan fiduciary. Yet, people still do it and come up with some amazing ways to get away with it. This new story...more