Newark, New Jersey – A lawsuit filed recently alleges Kyocera Document Solutions America, Inc., its Board of Directors, and Plan Retirement Committee mismanaged the company’s 401(k) retirement plan, resulting in millions of dollars in losses to current and former employees.
The Kyocera Defendants are duty-bound to protect the interests of retirement plan participants by, among other things, prudently managing the menu of investment options offered in their 401(k) retirement plan. This duty, which courts around the country have described as among the highest known to law, requires fiduciaries like the Kyocera Defendants to thoroughly evaluate investment options, monitor their performance, and remove or replace investment options from the plan that become imprudent.
Almeida Law Group and Stark & Stark PC filed the complaint in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. The complaint alleges that the Kyocera Defendants breached their fiduciary duties under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (“ERISA”) by continuously offering a chronically underperforming fund to plan participants, the T. Rowe Price Growth Fund, despite the fund’s persistent underperformance relative to its own stated benchmark and comparable peer funds. As alleged, “[a]ny prudent fiduciary exercising prudent monitoring of its menu of investment options would have notice that the TRP Growth Fund’s consistent underperformance was causing damages to the Plan participants.”
Financial models included in the complaint show that the Kyocera Defendants’ failure to remove the T. Rowe Price Growth Fund from the plan cost plan participants and beneficiaries tens of millions of dollars in retirement savings. To recover those lost savings and to prevent future harm to plan participants, the plaintiff is seeking an order compelling the Kyocera Defendants to make good to the plan all losses incurred as a result of the Kyocera Defendants breaches of fiduciary duty as well as equitable relief to ensure the Kyocera Defendants comply with their obligations under ERISA going forward.
The plaintiff is represented by Christopher Nienhaus of Almeida Law Group and Martin P. Schrama and Stefanie Colella-Walsh of Stark & Stark PC. Almeida Law Group remains committed to fighting for employees and are steadfast in our mission to hold companies accountable for corporate misconduct. Read more about this case here.