Cornell Retirement Plan Dispute Tees Up Circuit Split at SCOTUS

The US Supreme Court on Wednesday will hear arguments over Cornell University’s retirement plan, giving the justices a chance to clarify what employees challenging 401(k) service provider fees must allege to advance their claims.

The court’s decision could dictate how easy—or difficult—it is for workers to successfully argue that retirement plan service provider arrangements violate the Employee Retirement Income Security Act’s prohibited transaction rules. These rules, which put guardrails on relationships between plans and interested parties, have driven a circuit split partly based on how the statute is drafted: one section of ERISA defines prohibited transactions in broad terms, while ...