In a bit of a Tibble v. Edison redux, the Supreme Court said Monday that it will hear a case involving high-fees and fiduciary complaints, this time involving Intel Corp.
The case, like high-profile Edison, also involves questions of timing, and just how long employees have in bringing suits involving retirement plan investment issues.
The outcome could curtail the length of time in which plaintiffs are allowed to file.
“The justices will take up Intel’s appeal of a lower court ruling that revived the proposed class action lawsuit, initiated by a former employee in 2015, after a judge earlier agreed with the technology company that the litigation was filed too late,” according to Reuters.
The wire service reports that the company committees managing the retirement contribution and 401k savings plans are accused of “breaching their fiduciary duty to the participants by placing an overly heavy emphasis on alternative investments such as hedge funds and private equity, in contrast to peer retirement funds.”
The lawsuit was brought by former Intel engineer Christopher Sulyma.
California-based Intel said the lawsuit should be thrown out because the fund participants had “actual knowledge” of the issue more than three years before the lawsuit was filed based on emails the company had sent with links to documents about the investments.
Tibble trouble
During Supreme Court arguments in 2015 in Tibble, power company Edison International claimed that under ERISA statutes, plaintiffs could only sue over funds that were among the investment offerings during the previous six years or less.
Some of the funds in question in that case were offered longer than six years prior, which Edison argued fell outside the window for legal standing.
The high court decided in favor of the plaintiffs, agreeing with a lower court that Edison breached its “fiduciary obligations of prudence and monitoring” in the selection of all 17 mutual funds at issue.
With more than 20 years serving financial markets, John Sullivan is the former editor-in-chief of Investment Advisor magazine and retirement editor of ThinkAdvisor.com. Sullivan is also the former editor of Boomer Market Advisor and Bank Advisor magazines, and has a background in the insurance and investment industries in addition to his journalism roots.
