Legal

On Wednesday, the justices were divided on the class action lawsuit on behalf of 28,000 Cornell University employees accusing the school's retirement plans of paying excessive recordkeeping fees.

Trillion dollar asset manager Northern Trust has also quit Climate Action 100+, an investor-led initiative of financial institutions, as pushback over ESG investing continues.

In addition to the $40 million Vanguard agreed to pay to investors as part of a class action suit in November, the SEC now finds that the firm did not provide retail investors accurate information about the capital gains and tax implications of a change to investment minimums.

In the latest Securities and Exchange Commission off-channel communications sweep, 12 firms will pay hefty fines because they used unapproved communication methods, such as WhatsApp, and failed to properly keep records.

The online trading firm has agreed to settle the Securities and Exchange Commission fines, related to 10 violations, including failures to report suspicious activity in a timely manner, implement adequate identity theft protections and provide “blue sheet data” to the SEC.

A federal judge has dismissed – for the second time – a lawsuit against Bechtel Global that alleged the $5.7 billion plan's default managed account investment led to excessive fees and subpar returns, arguing that a target date fund would have been a better alternative.

Last week, BlackRock dropped out of the United Nations-backed climate change investing initiative, which was followed by NZAM suspending its activities on Monday because of “recent developments … in investors’ respective jurisdictions,” according to its website.

A federal judge in Texas ruled that American Airlines violated its ERISA duties by not focusing “on the best financial benefit” for its 401(k) plan, in the biggest victory yet in a case involving ESG investing.