DOL sues to recover employee stock ownership losses

The U.S. Department of Labor filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in an attempt to recover losses from participants in the Parrot Cellular Employee Stock Ownership Plan.

The suit comes after an investigation conducted by DOL’s Employee Benefits Security Administration that discovered violations under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. According to the suit, the defendant is Dennis Webb, the principal owner of Entrepreneurial Ventures Inc., which operates Parrot Cellular telephone retail stores in Northern and Central California and sponsors the worker retirement plan. Other defendants include Matthew Fidiam and J. Robert Gallucci, EVI executives, along with Consulting Fiduciaries Inc., an Illinois-based company that acted as the independent fiduciary and investment manager for the ESOP when it bought the stock in November 2002.