Managing plan assets, fiduciary liability under ERISA

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The Employee Retirement Income Security Act is now 40 years old. The types of investments available to employee benefit plans have evolved in that time. What does managing plan assets and fiduciary liability under ERISA look like these days?

The statute wisely refrains from establishing lists of specific securities or other assets that are either permitted or prohibited. Instead, ERISA requires fiduciaries to select investments in accordance with the duty of prudence. That is, with the care, skill, prudence and diligence that a prudent person acting in a like capacity and familiar with such matters would use in the conduct of an enterprise of a like character and with like aims.