Resources
Nov 3 2014
Legal Considerations When Engaging an Investment Professional for an ERISA Pension Plan
Author(s): Jonathan Cerrito | Michael Daum
Tags: Employee Benefits
This is the first in a series of articles about legal considerations under ERISA for pension plan fiduciaries in selecting and monitoring investment professionals to assist with the investment of plan assets. The prudent investment of plan assets is one of the most basic duties facing pension plan fiduciaries under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. Under Section 404(a) of ERISA, fiduciaries must invest with the care, skill, prudence, and diligence under the circumstances then-prevailing that a prudent person acting in a like capacity and familiar with such matters would use in the conduct of a like enterprise of a like character and with like aims, and must diversify the investments of the plan so as to minimize the risk of large losses, unless under the circumstances it is clearly prudent not to.