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Myron Rumeld

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Myron D. Rumeld has over thirty-five years of experience handling all aspects of ERISA litigation at both the trial and appellate level. His broad experience includes numerous representations of 401(k) plan fiduciaries defending class action employer stock and excessive fee claims, and representations of large multiemployer pension and health fund trustees in the defense of a large assortment of fiduciary breach lawsuits. He has defended class action suits against Charles Schwab, Barnabas Health, Inc., Neuberger Berman, and the American Federation of Musicians Pension Fund, among many other clients; and he has tried cases for The Renco Group and Foot Locker, Inc., among others.

Chambers USA cites Myron as a “brilliant” and “sensational litigator,” who is "sharp, articulate, clever, and deeply committed to the work he does." Similarly, The Legal 500 United States has called Myron an “outstanding ERISA lawyer.”

Myron is presently co-chair of Proskauer’s ERISA Litigation Group.  He previously served as co-chair of Proskauer’s nationally renowned Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation Group. He also served as the past co-chairman of the Board of Editors for the American Bar Association publication, Employee Benefits Law (BBNA).

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A recent Ninth Circuit decision has generated considerable controversy amongst employee benefits practitioners by holding that plan fiduciaries engaged in prohibited transactions when they amended the plan’s existing recordkeeping contract to add brokerage and investment advisory services. In so ruling, the Court remanded the case to the district court to consider whether the transactions fell within the exemption for reasonable service agreements and, independently, whether it was imprudent for plan fiduciaries not to consider third-party compensation earned by the plan’s recordkeeper. The case is Bugielski v. AT&T Services, Inc., 76 F. 4th 894 (9th Cir. 2023).

Participants in AT&T’s 401(k) plan sued the plan administrator and the plan’s investment committee, alleging that defendants engaged in prohibited transactions and breached their duty of prudence by failing to investigate and evaluate all compensation earned by the plan’s longtime recordkeeper. The claims apparently were prompted by amendments to AT&T’s contract with its recordkeeper, which gave plan participants access to the recordkeeper’s brokerage account platform and to investment advisory services through a third-party advisor. Under these arrangements, the recordkeeper received revenue-sharing fees from the mutual funds available to participants via the brokerage account platform; and, through its own agreement with the investment advisor, the recordkeeper received a portion of the fees that the investment advisor earned from managing participant accounts.

In a case of first impression in the Tenth Circuit, the Court recently joined the chorus of circuit courts in holding that a 401(k) plan participant alleging excessive investment management or recordkeeping fees must assert a “meaningful benchmark” in order to survive a motion to dismiss.  In addition to rejecting commonly pleaded “benchmarks” because they were not meaningful, the Court’s ruling is of particular significance because, unlike some other courts, it dismissed the participants’ “share-class claim”—ruling on a motion to dismiss that their allegation that cheaper share classes of the same mutual fund were available to the plan was demonstrably false.  The case is Matney v. Barrick Gold, No. 22-4045, 2023 WL 5731996 (10th Cir. Sept. 6, 2023).

Two District Courts have reached conflicting decisions on the same day when ruling on substantially similar allegations that plan fiduciaries violated ERISA by paying too much for recordkeeping services, with one court dismissing the claims and the other court allowing the claims to move forward into the (often expensive) discovery phase of litigation.  The cases…

A third district court has dismissed with prejudice a complaint alleging that defendants breached their fiduciary duties under ERISA by offering 401(k) plan participants the option to invest in BlackRock LifePath Index Target Date Funds (the “Funds”).  Beldock v. Microsoft, Case No. 22-cv-1082 (W.D. Wash. Apr. 24, 2023).  Although the outcome of the court’s ruling here is consistent with earlier decisions, the rationale underlying the Beldock decision arguably goes further than in prior rulings, thus providing additional food for thought.

On remand from the U.S. Supreme Court, the Seventh Circuit issued its opinion in Hughes v. Northwestern University, concluding that participants in two Northwestern 403(b) plans plausibly pled fiduciary-breach claims based on allegations of excessive recordkeeping and investment management fees, but dismissed their claim that too many investment options caused them “decision paralysis.”  In…

A district court in the Southern District of Ohio and one in the Western District of Wisconsin reached opposite conclusions on motions to dismiss claims for fiduciary breach based on allegations that recordkeeping fees were unreasonably high.  Dismissal was granted in Sigetich v. The Kroger Co., No. 21-cv-697, 2023 WL 2431667 (S.D. Oh. Mar.…

In a striking reversal of approach beginning in the summer of 2022, the District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin went from denying, in whole or in part, virtually every motion to dismiss ERISA lawsuits targeting plan recordkeeping fees and investment fund selections to granting all of them.  This nearly 180 degree pivot comes…

A district court in New York recently dismissed a putative class action challenging retirement plan recordkeeping and investment management fees.  The case is Singh v. Deloitte LLP, No. 21-cv-8458, 2023 WL 186679 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 13, 2023).  The court’s decision adds to the growing number of Second Circuit district courts relying on out-of-circuit appellate decisions…

In Krutchen v. Ricoh USA, No. 22-cv-678, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 206792 (E.D. Pa. Nov. 15, 2022), a Pennsylvania district court dismissed an ERISA excessive fee complaint for failing to provide enough information about alleged comparator plans that allegedly paid less for recordkeeping services. The decision is notable for delivering defendants a victory in…

In Matousek v. MidAmerican Energy Co., 2022 WL 6880771, __ F.4th __ (8th Cir. 2022), the Eighth Circuit joined the Sixth and Seventh Circuits in affirming dismissal of ERISA breach of fiduciary duty claims alleging that the plan fiduciaries allowed the plan to pay excessive recordkeeping and administrative fees and offered imprudent investment options.…