Alerus Narrows Employee Stock Ownership Plan Redemption Lawsuit

Alerus Financial NA must defend a pared-back lawsuit by participants in the OC Communications employee stock ownership plan, who say they got a bad deal when their company was acquired and their shares were redeemed.

Alerus—which served as the trustee charged with representing participants in the OC stock plan—argued it couldn’t face liability for the company’s 2019 acquisition by broadband service provider TAK Communications CA Inc. because it had no authority over the transaction. Judge Daniel J. Calabretta agreed and blocked the participants from pursuing claims against Alerus for the transaction itself, but he said they could nevertheless challenge Alerus’s ...