Coming on the heels of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dudenhoeffer decision, which eliminated a pro-fiduciary presumption with respect to company stock holdings in qualified retirement plans, the 4th Circuit issued a decision last week that could cause even more unrest for plan fiduciaries. The case, Tatum v. RJR Pension Investment Committee, et al., represents a potential elevation of the standard “prudent fiduciary” rule as it had been widely understood it to govern ERISA retirement plans.
In short, the 4th Circuit in this case purports to require a fiduciary to determine whether a prudent fiduciary more likely than not would …