The U.S. Supreme Court will consider giving 401(k) participants more power to sue their plans over investments that impose excessive fees, accepting an appeal tied to a wave of suits against employers.
The appeal, filed by Edison International workers, contends that participants should be able to sue plans for retaining imprudent investments. A federal appeals court said a federal statute of limitations bars suits over investments added to a plan more than six years earlier.
The case comes to the Supreme Court amid intensified scrutiny of fees in retirement accounts, now the primary savings vehicle for old age. More than a dozen companies, including Lockheed Martin Corp. and ABB Ltd., have been sued since 2006. Americans held $6.6 trillion in 401(k)-type plans as of June 30, according to the Investment Company Institute.
The court agreed to take up the Edison case at the urging of the Obama administration, which told the justices that the lower court ruling "undermines the security and integrity" of billions of dollars in U.S. retirement funds.
Edison called that argument unfounded, saying the case "does not suggest any such threat to the retirement funds of America's workers."
Higher fees
The lawsuit focuses on six mutual funds added to the Edison plan in 1999. The workers say the plan improperly bought retail class shares, rather than identical institutional class shares that carried lower fees. Some of the fees on the retail shares were then returned to Edison's service provider, ultimately reducing the company's administrative costs by $8 million, according to the workers.
Two lower courts said the workers could sue only over the three funds that were added to the plan within the six-year statute of limitations. The workers won $371,000 on those funds and say they are entitled to additional damages on the rest.
