Does shareholder activism breach an ERISA fiduciary's duties?

 A little more than a month again on these pages we introduced the tale of NYC Comptroller John Liu and his high-profile public campaign against a certain large company recently accused of bribing foreign officials. Since then, at least one other state’s retirement plan trustee has jumped on the bandwagon.

This begs the question: Should ERISA trustees do the same? More specifically, when does shareholder activism cross the line and constitute a breach of one’s fiduciary duty to act solely for the benefit of the beneficiaries? Without getting into the minutia of ERISA (those interested should check out “Is Proxy Voting a Conflict-of-Interest Trap for the ERISA Fiduciary?“), let’s review some of the general views on this issue