Nationwide Settles With Retirement Plans; Will Pay $140 Million, Change Disclosures

A federal judge granted final approval April 9 to a $140 million settlement between Nationwide Life Insurance Co. and the trustees of as many as 24,000 profit-sharing plans (Haddock v. Nationwide Fin. Servs., Inc., 2015 BL 101178, D. Conn., 3:01-cv-01552-SRU, 4/9/15).

The settlement, one of the largest ever achieved in a revenue-sharing case under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, ends more than a decade of litigation over Nationwide’s collection of revenue-sharing payments from mutual funds that it selected as retirement plan investment options.

In addition to providing a cash payment of $140 million to the ...