Northwestern Retirement Plan Lawsuit Advances After SCOTUS Trip

A lawsuit challenging Northwestern University’s retirement plan fees is moving forward after the Seventh Circuit reconsidered the dispute in light of an intervening US Supreme Court ruling favoring the plan participants.

The appeals court decision, issued Thursday, revived employees’ claims that the school failed to monitor and incurred expensive recordkeeping fees, and that it failed to swap out retail shares for cheaper but otherwise identical institutional shares.

The Northwestern case—like hundreds of recent ERISA lawsuits—accuses retirement plan fiduciaries of mismanaging the plan by allowing fees to reach excessive levels. Northwestern prevailed in both the district court and on appeal ...