Retirement Savings (ERISA) law

Retirement Savings (ERISA) Law

″ERISA″ is an acronym for the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, a federal law designed to protect the retirement savings of workers. Employees in the United States depend on their company-sponsored retirement plans to provide them with income after they retire. To achieve financial security after they retire, these workers' retirement plan investments must perform well. If you have invested your hard-earned income in your company's retirement plan, the manner in which your employer has invested and managed your money plays a critical role in your retirement income. You should not assume that your current or former employer has as significant an interest in your retirement income as you do.

ERISA provides remedies for employees when the company they work for fails to live up to its fiduciary duty to prudently manage and invest the worker's savings in the company's retirement plan. Pursuant to ERISA, the company and its executives are required to act prudently, loyally, and with the highest regard for the interests of employees when it comes to selecting plan investment options and investing plan assets. If the company and the executives in charge of the retirement plan do not comply with their ERISA fiduciary duties, both current and former employees can seek to hold them accountable for losses in the value of the employee's retirement savings.

ERISA's fiduciary duties apply to all plan investment options. In recent years, however, company stock as a plan investment option has been closely scrutinized. With alarming frequency, employers have elected to invest millions, and in many cases hundreds of millions, of dollars of plan assets in their own company stock while at the same time engaging in highly risky and illegal business and accounting practices. These practices can cause company stock to be an imprudent and highly inappropriate plan investment option. These practices also often result in enormous plan losses. Bottini & Bottini, Inc. can help you pursue ERISA claims against your current or former employer for losses in the value of your company-sponsored retirement plan. If you would like more information, please call us at (858) 914-2001 or send us an email at info@bottinilaw.com.