Fidelity Investments settled a class-action lawsuit regarding its own 401(k) plan for $28.5 million.
The class-action case alleged that Fidelity breached its fiduciary responsibility to plan participants by including its proprietary products on the fund lineup. Fidelity previously settled another case in 2014 for $12 million regarding revenue sharing within their 401(k) plan.
Being a mutual fund company and trying to keep up appearances by including their funds in a 401(k) line up, this $28.5million is the cost of doing business because how would it look if Fidelity didn’t have any of their owns funds within their 401(k) plan? It would be like the restaurant workers who order takeout. As long as mutual fund companies offer their funds within a 401(k) plan, this is going to happen.
