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May 2012
A court found ABB Inc. and Fidelity Management Trust Company breached some fiduciary duties owed to participants in ABB’s retirement plans. U.S. District Judge Nanette K. Laughrey of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri found the ABB defendants violated their fiduciary duties to the plans when they failed to monitor recordkeeping (RK) costs; failed to negotiate rebates for the plan from either Fidelity or other investment companies chosen to be on the plans’ platform; selected more expensive share classes for the investment platform when less costly ones were available; and removed the Vanguard Wellington Fund from the investment menu and replaced it with Fidelity’s Freedom Funds. Laughrey ruled that ABB breached its fiduciary duty to the plans because it failed to comply with their investment policy statement asserting that, “at all times, [Alliance] rebates will be used to offset or reduce the cost of providing administrative services to plan participants.” Laughrey said she was unconvinced that ABB monitored the reasonableness of Fidelity Trust recordkeeping fees by monitoring the reasonableness of the expense ratio of the retail investments chosen for the plans’ platform. The court also found ABB Inc. and its employee benefits committee violated their fiduciary duties to the plans by agreeing to pay Fidelity an amount that exceeded market costs for plan services; they did this in order to subsidize the corporate services provided to ABB by Fidelity, such as ABB’s payroll and recordkeeping for ABB’s health and welfare plan and its defined benefit (DB) plan.
A court found ABB Inc. and Fidelity Management Trust Company breached some fiduciary duties owed to participants in ABB’s retirement plans.
U.S. District Judge Nanette K. Laughrey of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri found the ABB defendants violated their fiduciary duties to the plans when they failed to monitor recordkeeping (RK) costs; failed to negotiate rebates for the plan from either Fidelity or other investment companies chosen to be on the plans’ platform; selected more expensive share classes for the investment platform when less costly ones were available; and removed the Vanguard Wellington Fund from the investment menu and replaced it with Fidelity’s Freedom Funds.
Laughrey ruled that ABB breached its fiduciary duty to the plans because it failed to comply with their investment policy statement asserting that, “at all times, [Alliance] rebates will be used to offset or reduce the cost of providing administrative services to plan participants.”
Laughrey said she was unconvinced that ABB monitored the reasonableness of Fidelity Trust recordkeeping fees by monitoring the reasonableness of the expense ratio of the retail investments chosen for the plans’ platform.
The court also found ABB Inc. and its employee benefits committee violated their fiduciary duties to the plans by agreeing to pay Fidelity an amount that exceeded market costs for plan services; they did this in order to subsidize the corporate services provided to ABB by Fidelity, such as ABB’s payroll and recordkeeping for ABB’s health and welfare plan and its defined benefit (DB) plan.