In the ongoing Brundle v. Wilmington Trust ESOP saga, which is now in the appeals stage, the Department of Labor recently filed an amicus brief in support of the district court’s $29.8 million judgment against the ESOP trustee. The case arose out of a plan participant’s claim that the ESOP trustee breached its fiduciary duties to the plan by causing the ESOP to pay more than fair market value for the employer’s stock. Read more >>

In a developing ESOP case, the government recently suffered a setback when the court agreed with the trustee that portions of the damages testimony the government’s expert proposed failed to hold up under the Daubert reliability prong. Read more >>

Inadequate trustee performance was at the center of a recent case, featuring a nontraditional ESOP structure. The court found that, if the trustee had engaged with the underlying valuation, it would have discovered numerous weaknesses and prevented the ESOP from overpaying for the company stock. Read more >>