Retirement Regulation

A federal judge in Texas ruled that American Airlines violated its ERISA duties by not focusing “on the best financial benefit” for its 401(k) plan, in the biggest victory yet in a case involving ESG investing.

With regard to SECURE 2.0' s new catch-up provision, the IRS and the Treasury won’t allow employers to require that plan participants make Roth contributions, according to newly proposed guidelines released on Friday.

The world’s largest asset manager, with more than $10 trillion in assets under management, has dropped out of the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative, following the recent withdrawals of Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase and other megabanks.

State securities regulators discovered gaps in the firm’s supervisory process, when customers moved from brokerage to advisory accounts and the financial services firm implemented new policies in response to the now-defunct fiduciary rule.

Participants in the firm’s $2.9 billion 401(k) plan had sued the company, alleging it failed to regularly monitor plan investments and remove underperforming in-house funds.

Only 5% of employers allow student loan matching in their 401(k)s, but prevalence is expected to increase in 2025, while there is minimal interest among employers in the $2,500 emergency savings option, according to a new Alight survey.

Ex-employees are suing Verizon as well as State Street Global Advisors, which served as the “independent fiduciary” in putting the deal together to manage the pensions of 56,000 retirees.

The online retailer has been hit with a class action lawsuit, alleging it violated its ERISA fiduciary duties by using forfeited 401(k) funds to offset the company's own contributions instead of reducing administrative fees for over 20,000 participants.