Several years ago, Chris Tobe, Risk Ferri, and I founded the “The CommonSense 401k Project” web site. The” Project” was created as a means of providing information on fiduciary law and compliance, specifically with regard to ERISA, the primary law with regard to American pension plans.

Chrisnow manages the “Project’s” web site/blog. Chris has extensive experience in the area of annuitiss and related investment options. He frequently serves as an expert in ERISA litigation cases.

I am a former ERISA attorney and former trial attorney. While Chris’ services primarily focus on fiduciary liability after the fact, after ERISA violations have occured, my practice is now focused on serving as a fiduciary risk management/minimization consultant, focusing on proactively designing, implementing, and maintaining ERISA defined contribution plans, such as 401k plans.

Chris recently wrote an oustanding post focusing on the Supreme Court’s recent announcemnt that it would hear a case involving the Intel corporation and the issuws involving the inclusion of alternative investments in defined contribution plans. Given the importance of pension plans in many worker’s financial security, the Intel case has the potential to impact many workers’ retirement security, including the availability of certain investments generally considered as inherently riskier than most investments commonly found in defined contribution plan, e.g., index mutual funds.

ERISA 404(a) requires that a plan sponsor has a duty to independently investigate and evaluate each investment offered wihtin a pension plan. However, as Chris points out in his post, the lack of transparency is a common issue with most alternative investments. Only having a product vendor’s unverifiable representations to rely on in making potentially life altering decisions for one’s employees, and the potenial liability for such decisions, often puts plan sponsors in an untenable financial position, one a prudent fiduciary would prefer to avoid, especially if the investment in question is not even legally required to be offered by a plan.

Chris has also included comments and insights regarding recent posts that I have written with regard to amicus briefs and other positions that the Department of Labor (DOL) and/or the Employess Benefits Security Administration (EBSA). These two entities are charged with protecting employees’ rights and protections guaranteed under ERISA. However, they have issuedbriefs and/or taken positions that arguably place the best interests of plan sponsors and product vendors ahead of the best interests of American workers.

While both the DOL and EBSA have attempted to justify their questionable actions by citing a new administration, that raises the question of whether ERISA’s guaranteed rights and protections are so vitally important to American workers’ financial security that they should be beyond the whims and manipulation of each new Presidential administration. After all, ERISA’s goals and guarantees do not change with each administration, so why should ERISA’s priorities and enforcment activity change?