Retirement Plan Claims
Retirement plan claims arise in a number of different contexts, but they all share one thing in common: your benefit or your account balance is not worth as much as it should be. The Law Offices of Michael Bartolic, LLC handles claims related to all types of ERISA covered retirement plans, including defined benefit pension plans, ESOPs, 401(k) plans, profit sharing plans, cash balance plans, SERPs, and other executive retirement plans.
With the waning existence of traditional defined benefit pension plans, most claims arise out of defined contribution plans like profit sharing plans or 401(k) plans. You may have been wrongfully excluded from participation in a plan, or if allowed to participate, your employer may have failed to make required employer or matching contributions. In other cases, your employer may make representations to you and other employees that turn out to be inconsistent with the terms of the plan, and the terms of the plan are less favorable to you. Finally, your individual account in the plan may not be growing quickly enough because your employer is allowing the plan to pay unreasonable and excessive fees to service providers. This happens more often than you might think, especially with employers that have grown rapidly in size. If your employer is not frequently shopping the market for service providers, it cannot possibly be certain to securing good services for your retirement account at competitive fees.
Various cases arise out of an employer’s retirement plan containing that employer’s own stock. For example, the plan may be a profit sharing plan, some of which includes employer stock, or it could be an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (“ESOP”). If your retirement plan has employer stock as part of its offerings, it may have been a breach of fiduciary duty for your employer to continue to offer that employer stock as an investment alternative because it knew information which made it unreasonable to continue to offer that stock as an option. If you have any grievance related to your employer sponsored retirement plan, call us today.
With the waning existence of traditional defined benefit pension plans, most claims arise out of defined contribution plans like profit sharing plans or 401(k) plans. You may have been wrongfully excluded from participation in a plan, or if allowed to participate, your employer may have failed to make required employer or matching contributions. In other cases, your employer may make representations to you and other employees that turn out to be inconsistent with the terms of the plan, and the terms of the plan are less favorable to you. Finally, your individual account in the plan may not be growing quickly enough because your employer is allowing the plan to pay unreasonable and excessive fees to service providers. This happens more often than you might think, especially with employers that have grown rapidly in size. If your employer is not frequently shopping the market for service providers, it cannot possibly be certain to securing good services for your retirement account at competitive fees.
Various cases arise out of an employer’s retirement plan containing that employer’s own stock. For example, the plan may be a profit sharing plan, some of which includes employer stock, or it could be an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (“ESOP”). If your retirement plan has employer stock as part of its offerings, it may have been a breach of fiduciary duty for your employer to continue to offer that employer stock as an investment alternative because it knew information which made it unreasonable to continue to offer that stock as an option. If you have any grievance related to your employer sponsored retirement plan, call us today.