The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Jan. 22 in a case where Cornell University employees sought to revive their class action lawsuit, alleging that their retirement plan charged exorbitant fees and was mismanaged.
The case, Cunningham v. Cornell University, arose when about 30,000 Cornell University employees alleged that their employer’s defined contribution retirement plans, which had $3.3 billion in funds under management, paid excessive recordkeeping fees from 2010 to 2016. They said the fees were so high because the plans offered too many investment choices and dealt with too many recordkeepers, according to the petition.
The employees sued the respondents—the university and two investment providers, Fidelity and TIAA—in a federal district court in New York in 2017….