For many years, plan sponsors and other fiduciaries have been caught in a whirlwind of litigation primarily related to 401(k) and 403(b) plan fees. Many of these cases have settled resulting in plan fiduciaries having to pay many millions of dollars. Other cases have resulted in adverse decisions against plan fiduciaries.
In Hughes v. Northwestern, the U.S. Supreme Court had the opportunity to stem these lawsuits by declined to do so, remanding the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit for further deliberation. As a result, plan sponsors and other fiduciaries were left with little hope that the proliferation of 401(k) and 403(b) fee cases would ever abate.