News & Analysis as of

Fiduciary Duty Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) Corporate Counsel

Husch Blackwell LLP

Employers Continue to Face ERISA Tobacco Surcharge Lawsuits, With Mixed Results

Husch Blackwell LLP on

Recently, companies have seen a spate of class action lawsuits challenging the legality of tobacco cessation wellness programs and related tobacco surcharges imposed by their employer-sponsored health benefit plans....more

Littler

Littler Lightbulb – May Employment Appellate Roundup

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Fourth Circuit Dismisses White Employee’s Race, Gender, and Retaliation Claims - Barnhill v. Pamela Bondi, __ F.4th __ (4th Cir. May 15, 2025) involved claims by a white Department of Justice Drug Enforcement Administration...more

Fisher Phillips

Federal Appeals Court Decision Reminds Employers About Their Duty to Monitor Service Providers of ERISA-Covered Health and Welfare...

Fisher Phillips on

A federal appeals court just illustrated the importance of an employer’s duty to monitor service providers that assist with the administration of employee welfare benefit plans. In the May 21 decision of Tiara Yachts v. Blue...more

A&O Shearman

Supreme Court’s Cornell decision sets low pleading bar for ERISA claims

A&O Shearman on

In a decision poised to change the landscape of Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”) litigation, on April 17, 2025, the Supreme Court held in Cunningham et al. v. Cornell University et al. that a claimant...more

Snell & Wilmer

Five Things to Know about the DOL’s New VFCP Self-Correction Feature Taking Effect Next Week

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By Amberlee Lapointe On January 14, 2025, the DOL’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (“EBSA”) released updates to its Voluntary Fiduciary Correction Program (“VFCP”), along with a News Release and Fact Sheet...more

Pullman & Comley - Labor, Employment and...

Retirement Plan Update – Forfeitures are New Focus of Fiduciary Breach Litigation

Many employer-sponsored defined contributions plans, including 401(k) profit sharing plans and money purchase pension plans include a vesting schedule – a period over which a plan participant earns a nonforfeitable right to...more

Kaufman & Canoles

ESOPs, Benefits & Compensation Client Alert - January 2025

Kaufman & Canoles on

On January 16, the Department of Labor released long-awaited guidance on how to determine the value of employer stock in purchase and sale transactions involving an ESOP. Unfortunately for those in the ESOP community hoping...more

A&O Shearman

ESG Investing Takes A Blow In Texas Federal Court

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On January 10, 2025, Judge Reed O’Connor of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas ruled, following a four-day bench trial, that an airline breached ERISA fiduciary duties when investing...more

Nossaman LLP

Relying on Loper, Fifth Circuit Sends Chevron-based decision Back to District Court, calling ESG Rule into Question

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On July 18, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (“Fifth Circuit”) vacated a decision by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas (“District Court”) that upheld the U.S. Department of Labor’s...more

Jackson Lewis P.C.

Second Circuit Weighs in Against ERISA Arbitration

Jackson Lewis P.C. on

Recently, the Second Circuit became the latest circuit refusing to enforce individual arbitration of an ERISA class action, joining the Third, Seventh, and Tenth Circuits. The Ninth Circuit, by contrast, has held that class...more

Mintz

Federal Judge Certifies Class Objecting to ESG Investments by Retirement Fund

Mintz on

On May 22, 2024, Judge O'Connor (N.D. Tex.) ordered that the plaintiffs claiming that investment managers breached their fiduciary duty due to their ESG-focused investing be certified as a class for purposes of the...more

Mintz

Texas Court Rules ESG Lawsuit Against Employer's 401(k) Plan Can Proceed

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Recently, a Texas federal court denied the defendants' motion to dismiss in a lawsuit featuring allegations that an employer's 401(k) plan, which allegedly relied on ESG principles when making investments, violated ERISA. ...more

ArentFox Schiff

Airline 401k Decision Illustrates Continued Takeoff of ESG Litigation

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A Texas federal judge recently permitted an environmental, social, and governance- (ESG) related Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) case filed by an airline pilot against his employer and its benefits plan to...more

McDermott Will & Schulte

Takeaways from a Recent COBRA Notice Class Action Settlement

Recent years have seen a barrage of class action lawsuits alleging that group health plan continuation coverage election notices, required under the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA), are deficient in one...more

Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP

ERISA Litigation Roundup: Seventh Circuit Sets Forth Pleading Standard in ERISA Duty of Prudence Claims in Hughes v. Northwestern...

On March 23, 2023, the Seventh Circuit issued a long-awaited decision in Hughes v. Northwestern University, the case remanded from the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision of the same name. See Hughes v. Northwestern University, 142...more

Seyfarth Shaw LLP

ERISA Case Signals New Theories for Plaintiffs’ Bar

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Seyfarth Synopsis: After focusing most of its attention on retirement benefit plans, a recent complaint filed in the District of Connecticut shows that the plaintiffs’ bar is turning to health and welfare plans as targets for...more

Troutman Pepper Locke

Tenth Circuit Holds Arbitration Provision in ERISA Plan Document Unenforceable

Troutman Pepper Locke on

Recently, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals held an arbitration provision impermissibly blocked rights afforded to a retirement plan participant under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) and was therefore...more

Latham & Watkins LLP

DOL Final Rule on ESG Factors to Take Effect February 1, 2023

Latham & Watkins LLP on

The Final Rule clarifies the application of ERISA’s fiduciary duties of prudence and loyalty to the selection of plan investments that incorporate ESG goals. On November 22, 2022, the US Department of Labor (DOL) released a...more

Mintz

Department of Labor Enables Consideration of ESG Factors in ERISA Investments

Mintz on

Yesterday, the Department of Labor "released a final rule under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) . . . [that] clarif[ied] that fiduciaries may consider climate change and other environmental, social, and...more

Jackson Lewis P.C.

Failure to Identify Sound Comparisons Sinks ERISA Fee, Investment Claims in Eighth Circuit

Jackson Lewis P.C. on

Plaintiffs must plead a “sound basis for comparison—a meaningful benchmark” — to sustain their claims of imprudent investment and excessive fee against a 401(k) plan, the federal appeals court in St. Louis has held,...more

Proskauer - Employee Benefits & Executive...

Eighth Circuit Joins Growing Number of Courts Rejecting Common ERISA Fee and Investment Claims

In Matousek v. MidAmerican Energy Co., 2022 WL 6880771, __ F.4th __ (8th Cir. 2022), the Eighth Circuit joined the Sixth and Seventh Circuits in affirming dismissal of ERISA breach of fiduciary duty claims alleging that the...more

Fox Rothschild LLP

In ERISA Excessive Fee Cases, the Pendulum May Be Swinging Back In Favor of Plan Sponsors

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A new decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit in a so-called “excessive fee” case is good news for plan sponsors, particularly following the Supreme Court’s ruling earlier this year in Hughes v....more

Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP

ERISA Litigation Roundup: In the Aftermath of Hughes, Seventh Circuit Affirms Dismissal of Excessive Fee Lawsuit

On August 29, 2022, the Seventh Circuit decided Albert v. Oshkosh Corporation, affirming a district court’s dismissal of breach of fiduciary claims related to Oshkosh Corporation’s management of its 401(k) plan, and striking...more

Groom Law Group, Chartered

DOL Cybersecurity Investigations: The Trap Door to Endless Document Requests?

Parties involved in a Department of Labor (“DOL”) Employee Benefits Security Administration (“EBSA”) investigation often ask a simple question: how much information am I obligated to provide the DOL in response to an...more

Seyfarth Shaw LLP

Between A Rock and A Hard Place... ESG Investments in 401(k) Plan Line-Ups

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Seyfarth Synopsis: The ever evolving landscape of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors and 401(k) plan investment options may have just become even more complicated....more

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