Participants in the Emerald Coast Eye Institute (ECEI) 401(k) plan have filed a lawsuit alleging that the company and its founder Samuel Poppell breached their fiduciary duties of prudence under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) by not properly diversifying investments. Poppell selected and controlled investments in the plan, and plan participants did not have authority to choose how their assets were invested. According to the complaint, he chose to signifi

Edward Jones is being sued by a participant in the company's 401(k) plan for allegedly causing employees to pay high fees for investment management and record-keeping services that supposedly cost them millions in retirement savings. Many of the allegations in proposed class-action lawsuit, McDonald v. Edward D. Jones & Co. L.P. et al, which was filed Aug. 19 in Missouri district court, will be familiar to those following other excessive-fee cases against sponsors of multibil

In a year when the word “fiduciary” has been tossed around like an unmoored ship in a hurricane, it's perhaps not surprising that, for the first time, 401(k) plan sponsors are saying concern over fiduciary duty is the top reason they choose a plan adviser, according to a new Fidelity Investmentssurvey. A Labor Department regulation, known as the fiduciary rule, coming into effect next year will raise investment-advice standards in retirement accounts such as 401(k)s, and plan

After years of political battles, the Department of Labor (DOL) recently issued the highly anticipated final fiduciary rule. As expected, the final rule requires all financial advisors (including broker-dealers, registered investment advisors and insurance agents) to put their clients’ best interests before their own profits when they give retirement investment advice. The final rule applies when advising retirement plans (ERISA and non-ERISA plans) and individual retirement

Collective investment trusts have been capturing lots of attention and assets lately. CITs offer retirement-plan fiduciaries an attractive, generally lower-cost alternative to mutual funds. Assets invested in these vehicles have grown from about $900 billion in 2008 to over $1.5 trillion at the end of 2014, according to Pensions & Investments data. The low-cost dimension of CITs has also caught the attention of famed litigator Jerry Schlichter, of Schlichter Bogard & Denton.

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