A class-action lawsuit was filed last week alleging breach of fiduciary duty resulting from excessive record-keeping fees and use of proprietary investment funds.

The suit, Pledger et al. v. Reliance Trust Co. et al., targets the fiduciaries of the Insperity 401(k) Plan for allegedly causing participants to pay excessive fees to the plan record keeper, Insperity Retirement Services.

The complaint further alleges that Insperity and Reliance Trust Co., the plan’s discretionary trustee, breached their fiduciary duties under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 by offering funds with high expenses and poor performance, including proprietary mutual funds and collective investment trusts offered by Reliance. Insperity also failed to adequately monitor Reliance, a fiduciary responsible for investment selection in the plan.

“We allege that Insperity and Reliance Trust together operated the plan for their own self-interest, sending excessive record-keeping fees to Insperity’s in-house record keeper,” said one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys. “Reliance Trust was a fiduciary responsible for investment selection and picked its own funds, including target date funds that had only been in existence for less than a week. They performed poorly, had high fees and had no performance history.”

Reliance and Insperity could have selected identical funds with lower fees, but didn’t in order to drive revenue-sharing payments to Insperity’s record-keeping arm, the suit alleges.

The Insperity 401(k) Plan has approximately $2 billion in assets and more than 85,000 active participants, according to BrightScope Inc.

If you or someone you know has lost money as a result of an investment or Ponzi scheme, please contact Richard Frankowski at 888-741-7503 to discuss your potential legal remedies or complete the contact form.