Buffett’s MidAmerican Energy Beats 401(k) Fee Suit in 8th Cir.

Berkshire Hathaway-owned Iowa power utility MidAmerican Energy Co. on Wednesday defeated an Eighth Circuit appeal by employees challenging their 401(k) plan fees and investment options.

The MidAmerican plan participants failed to show, by pointing to sound and meaningful benchmarks, that the administrative fees their plan paid to Merrill Lynch were unreasonably high, the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled. Instead of pointing to fees paid by specific, comparably sized plans for similar services, they pointed to “industry-wide averages” contained in third-party reports, which were “unhelpful” and didn’t allow the court to make a clean comparison, the ...