Lowe’s 401(k) Class Action Can Include ‘Eleventh-Hour’ Witnesses

A looming trial over how Lowe’s Cos. managed its 401(k) plan can include testimony from three witnesses the retailer didn’t disclose until 9 p.m. on the final day of the discovery period, after a federal judge in North Carolina said Monday that the witnesses could “easily be deposed long before the scheduled trial.”

A class of 250,000 investors in the company’s 401(k) plan, who are challenging the decision to move more than $1 billion in plan assets to an underperforming Aon Hewitt fund, in December asked Judge Kenneth D. Bell to exclude testimony from nearly three dozen witnesses that Lowe’s...