Northwestern University employees who challenged the fees and investment funds in their retirement plan doubled down on their arguments in the Seventh Circuit, saying the school’s defense strategy relies on a faulty reading of the tax code.
The employees’ March 27 brief seized on Northwestern’s reference to “2009 IRS regulations that imposed new fiduciary duties” on Northwestern as a retirement plan sponsor. This argument is “erroneous on many levels,” the employees said, because the Internal Revenue Service has no authority to regulate the standard of conduct for plan fiduciaries under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.
The employees also blasted ...