Benefits & ERISA Law

The Perfect 401(k) Plan?

What would a 401(k) plan look like if you could create the fantasy football version (fantasy 401(k)?) for your company? Well, thanks to the good folks at Brightscope (I have only the vaguest idea at this point who they are and what they do, but I am already enjoying their new blog), you don’t have to wonder anymore - it would look something like this one right here, offered by the Saudi Arabian Oil Company. Low fees, great company contributions, high participation, high dollar values in individual participants’ accounts. The description of the plan reminds me of something I have often discussed on this blog, which is the idea that there is an inverse correlation between ERISA litigation brought by participants and the extent of retirement risk that particular plans impose on the participants; for instance, pension plans generated only a relatively low level of participant driven litigation because most of the financial risk related to pensions rested with the sponsor, but defined contribution plans will generate more participant driven litigation, because such plans transfer the risk (and thus the corresponding motivation to remedy the risk and eliminate losses by means of litigation) onto participants. A plan such as the one highlighted here by Brightscope, I suspect, would generate almost no participant driven litigation.

Full post as published by Boston ERISA Law Blog on January 13, 2009 (boomark / email).