Public Pension Fund Files Complaint Against Wells Fargo Over Compensation Received

The Chattanooga Fire & Police Pension Fund filed a complaint in Tennessee state court asking for a full accounting from Wells Fargo of any compensation it has received from third parties during its years as trustee of the fund.

According to correspondence between the fund and the bank reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, the bank admitted it had kept revenue-sharing payments it owed to the retirement fund. Wells Fargo said it was the result of “a system set-up error.”

According to the Wall Street Journal, the bank recently told the pension fund that the system problem had been corrected. However, the retirement fund disagrees with the amount of revenue sharing Wells Fargo says it received.

In a statement provided to PLANSPONSOR, Wells Fargo said: “We acknowledge that because there was a change directed by the client in 2017, we made an error in setting up the revenue sharing associated with that change appropriately, and the revenue share rebates did not occur as intended. We are sorry this error occurred, and upon discovery, the issue was fixed, and the total revenue share received from the third party fund companies (approximately $15,000) was returned to the pension fund. We have been in active dialogue with the client and have been committed to resolving this matter and are disappointed they felt the need to file a complaint requesting information we have provided and are very willing to provide.”

Despite Wells Fargo’s admission, the retirement fund also filed a whistleblower complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission outlining the bank’s alleged improprieties.