Within the course of the past few years from time to time we would hear about a case where a university, a hospital or a firm would be taken to court to dispute the retirement benefits offered to participants by the establishment. However, when the DOL tried to change how participants should be treated by all parties involved by pushing the Best Interest Rule, all the dirt in the mud started to surface. The participants became more educated about the rights and started to question plan administrators about their retirement plans. Many questions arose and became a pain point or even worse, a liability, to fiduciaries.
Nowadays we hear about various lawsuits almost every other week. But not all of them uncover the flaw in the plan. On the contrary, some fiduciaries were prudent enough to put together the process that would follow the best practices in regards to financial planning for retirement. For example, in the recent class action lawsuit against NYU (“Fiduciary Best Practices Helped NYU Win ERISA Class Action”), was decided in favor of the defendant. This is because the current fiduciary process set up by NYU was prudent enough to pass the judgement of the court. Such examples should encourage other fiduciaries to look closely at their plan administration practices and do eveything they can to uphold best practices.
