Lumen Technologies Faces Lawsuit Over PRT, Following Similar Cases

Lumen Technologies Inc. and its independent fiduciary, State Street Global Advisors Trust Co., are the latest targets in a litigation trend of filing complaints against pension risk transfers conducted with Athene Annuity and Life Co.

In Dow v. Lumen Technologies Inc. et al., filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado on Wednesday, two Lumen employees are suing the company and State Street for selecting Athene as the annuity provider in a pension risk transfer the company conducted in October 2021.

The $1.4 billion transaction involved offloading approximately 22,600 Lumen retirees and beneficiaries of Lumen’s Combined Pension Plan to Athene through group annuity contracts. Athene is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit.

The complaint, like many others filed against employers in the last few months, accuses Athene of being a “highly risky private-equity controlled insurance company with a complex and opaque structure.” By selecting Athene, the plaintiffs allege that the telecommunications company violated its fiduciary duty under ERISA to obtain the “safest annuity available.”

“Athene structures its annuities to generate higher expected returns and profits for itself and its affiliates by investing in lower-quality, higher-risk assets rather than in quality assets that would better support its future benefit obligations,” the lawsuit alleges. “In transferring plaintiffs’ pension benefits to Athene, defendants put Lumen retirees’ and their beneficiaries’ future retirement benefits at substantial risk of default without appropriate compensation.”

An Athene spokesperson commented, “This complaint is an entirely baseless attempt by class action attorneys to enrich themselves at the expense of retirees. Every pension group annuity participant whose benefits have been guaranteed by Athene has received and will receive their promised benefits in full. In each pension group annuity transaction for which Athene has been selected, there has been a robust review process carried out by a fiduciary and their independent advisers who are experts at assessing insurer safety.”

The complaint also argued that Lumen saved a “substantial amount of money” by selecting a group annuity contract form Athene instead of the “actual safest annuity available.”

Earlier this week, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and State Street were also sued for a $2 billion PRT they conducted with Athene in 2019.

The plaintiffs in the Lumen Technologies case are represented by law firm Schlichter Bogard LLP. The same firm has represented plaintiffs in similar cases against General Electric Co., Alcoa Corp. and Lockheed Martin Corp.

To remedy the fiduciary breaches, the former Lumen employees seek disgorgement of the sums involved in the PRT transaction and the posting of security to assure receipt by plaintiffs and members of the proposed class of their full retirement benefits.

As of December 31, 2022, Lumen employed approximately 29,000 employees and recorded $17.48 billion in annual net revenue.

Lumen and State Street did not immediately respond to a request for comment.