{"id":75,"date":"2015-02-21T16:29:04","date_gmt":"2015-02-22T00:29:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/erisa-experts.com\/blog\/?p=75"},"modified":"2016-03-01T13:20:01","modified_gmt":"2016-03-01T21:20:01","slug":"proposed-62-million-settlement-submitted-for-approval-in-lockheed-401k-excessive-fee-litigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erisa-experts.com\/blog\/2015\/02\/21\/proposed-62-million-settlement-submitted-for-approval-in-lockheed-401k-excessive-fee-litigation\/","title":{"rendered":"Proposed $62 Million Settlement Submitted for Approval in Lockheed 401(k) Excessive Fee Litigation"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Joseph A. Garofolo<\/a><\/p>\n

On February 20, 2015, the parties in Abbott, et al. v. Lockheed Martin Corporation, et al.<\/em>,\u00a0No. 06-cv-701-MJR-DGW, filed their joint motion for\u00a0preliminary approval of\u00a0a class action settlement.\u00a0 Plaintiffs’ counsel touted the\u00a0proposed settlement as the “the largest ever for a case of this nature.”\u00a0 (Plaintiffs’ Memorandum in Support of Joint Motion for Preliminary Approval of Settlement at 1).<\/p>\n

The lawsuit, pending in the United States District Court\u00a0for the Southern District of Illinois,\u00a0alleges fiduciary breaches of ERISA and prohibited transactions relating to fees and expenses\u00a0paid from assets of two 401(k) plans sponsored by Lockheed Martin.\u00a0 The suit also asserts that plan fiduciaries improperly managed company stock funds and\u00a0a stable value fund.<\/p>\n

If approved by the court, defendants would pay $62 million into a settlement account.\u00a0 In addition, defendants have agreed to, inter alia<\/em>,\u00a0implement competitive bidding for recordkeeping services provided to the plans and to offer plan participants investment share classes with the lowest expense ratio with certain caveats.<\/p>\n

Based on the plaintiffs’ briefing in support of the joint motion, class counsel will request not more than one-third ($20,666,667) of the $62 million cash settlement fund and costs of not more than $1,850,000.<\/p>\n

The terms of the proposed settlement will be reviewed by an independent fiduciary pursuant to Department of Labor Prohibited Transaction Class Exemption 2003-39.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit was commenced\u00a0more than eight years ago and decisions of the district court have been appealed multiple times.\u00a0 The settlement agreement with its\u00a0exhibits, including Exhibit 3 (the proposed notice to class members),\u00a0can be reviewed here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It is the author’s opinion that the proposed settlement is likely to be approved by the court.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Joseph A. Garofolo On February 20, 2015, the parties in Abbott, et al. v. Lockheed Martin Corporation, et al.,\u00a0No. 06-cv-701-MJR-DGW, filed their joint motion for\u00a0preliminary approval of\u00a0a class action settlement.\u00a0 Plaintiffs’ counsel touted the\u00a0proposed settlement as the “the largest ever for a case of this nature.”\u00a0 (Plaintiffs’ Memorandum in Support of Joint Motion for … <\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,7,6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"entry","1":"post","2":"publish","3":"author-jgarofolo","4":"post-75","6":"format-standard","7":"category-401k-plans","8":"category-erisa-settlements","9":"category-pte-2003-39"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erisa-experts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/erisa-experts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/erisa-experts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erisa-experts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erisa-experts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/erisa-experts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":148,"href":"https:\/\/erisa-experts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions\/148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erisa-experts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erisa-experts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erisa-experts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}