The 5 biggest ERISA retirement plan settlements of 2019

Large corporations have paid $6.2 billion in claims brought under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act since 2000, according to Good Jobs First, a non-profit advocacy that promotes corporate and government accountability. In the past two decades, 201 class-action settlements or verdicts have been issued involving Fortune 1000 companies. The largest was reached in 2014 for $480 million in a suit brought against Daimler's retiree health care plan. Two settlements against not-for-profit health care systems—Providence St. Joseph Health and Mercy Health—went for $351 million and $161 million, respectively. Those claims alleged the hospital pensions unduly rationalized under-funding pensions using ERISA's church-plan status exemption. Jerry Schlichter, founding partner of Schlichter, Bogard & Denton, the St. Louis-based law firm that has filed scores of claims against sponsors of retirement plans, recently told BenefitsPRO that there had never been a lawsuit against a defined contribution plan prior to his first filing in 2006. Take a look at the gallery above detailing the top five ERISA settlements that have (so far) been validated by courts in 2019.