The National Association of Plan Advisors is up in arms about the release of Yale Law School professor Ian Ayres' paper attacking high fees in the 401(k) industry.
The organization took issue with the first iteration of the paper, which was released last year, when Ayres attempted to "drum up outrage about high fees" in workplace plans. As part of his initial report, he called out the companies who were charging the highest fees.
NAPA says that the new report doesn't call out individual employers but still uses five-year-old data that doesn't take into consideration how far fees have come down since 2009.
In a blog post, Ray Harmon, NAPA's government affairs counsel, highlights a report by Aon Hewitt that showed more than 75 percent of companies have reduced 401(k) plan expenses since 2011. And just this week, Mainstreet reported that plan fees continued to decline in 2013 due to new Department of Labor fee disclosure regulations.