Below are links to all the 401(k) fee complaints filed by Schlichter, Bogard, & Denton in PDF format. The links are arranged by the court in which the cases are presently being heard — several have been transferred since being filed. The captions include only the main corporate defendant, except for the three cases in which Fidelity has also been sued as recordkeeper/trustee/investment manager.
Brief Summary of Allegations
All the complaints allege that plans paid excessive and undisclosed fees, principally through revenue sharing. The complaints are modular, however, and many complaints allege other fiduciary breaches, including:
- Undisclosed hard dollar payments to service providers from master trusts
- Excessive fees paid to ”shadow indexes”
- Excessive fees and cash holdings by company stock funds
- The use of plan assets to pay for settlor functions
- Self-dealing by service providers and investment managers who were functional fiduciaries
- Misleading fee and performance benchmarks
All the ccomplaints allege that the fiduciaries failed to disclose (or delibrately concealed) fee information. Consequently, plaintiffs claim, ERISA Section 404(c) protection does not apply.
Ninth Circuit
ND Cal.
CD Cal.
Waldbuesser v. Northrop Grumman
Seventh Circuit
Nd Ill.
CD Ill.
SD Ill.
Beasley v. International Paper
WD Mo.
Second Circuit
D. Conn.