In its 2014 decision in Fifth Third Bancorp v. Dudenhoeffer,1 the U.S. Supreme Court held that fiduciaries of plans that hold publicly traded company stock are subject to the same duty of prudence that applies to fiduciaries in general under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), 29 U.S.C. §1000. In doing so, the Supreme Court effectively rejected decades of law applied by nearly all the circuit courts of appeals affording fiduciaries of company stock plans a special “presumption of prudence” not available to the fiduciaries of other varieties of ERISA plans.
In place of the presumption of prudence, the Dudenhoeffer decision announced new standards that apply when deciding whether a fiduciary of a company-stock plan acted prudently within the meaning of ERISA §1104(a)(1)(B). The overruling of the presumption of prudence is likely to have significant implications for future claims against these fiduciaries.
