Over the last few years lawsuits have been filed against approximately 20 university retirement plans. Typically, the lawsuits allege that plan fiduciaries breached their duties by offering poorly performing funds and allowing their plans to pay excessive fees. Defendants include:
- Brown University;
- Columbia University;
- Cornell University;
- Duke University;
- Emory University;
- Georgetown University;
- George Washington University;
- The Johns-Hopkins University;
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology;
- Northwestern University;
- New York University (NYU);
- Princeton University;
- University of Chicago;
- University of Pennsylvania;
- University of Southern California;
- University of Rochester;
- Vanderbilt University;
- Washington University; and
- Yale University.
Among these lawsuits, one of the first major decisions was Sacerdote v. NYU (referred to herein as the NYU case) which offers several important lessons for plan committees regarding their fiduciary duties under ERISA.