A participant in a CoreLogic Inc. 401(k) plan has sued the company and plan fiduciaries alleging a series of ERISA violations ranging from charging excessive record-keeping and investment fees to retaining poor-performing mutual funds.
“Defendants have not followed ERISA’S standard of care,” asserted the June 2 complaint, filed in a U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, Calif., in the case of Sabana vs. CoreLogic et al. The plaintiff is seeking class-action status.
The complaint accused the defendants of overpaying for record-keeping services, failing to offer lower-cost share classes of mutual funds and keeping investments that lagged their benchmarks.
“Defendants paid Fidelity unreasonable fees, failed to monitor Fidelity and (failed to) make request for proposals from other record keepers,” said the complaint. Fidelity Investments isn’t a defendant. “The plan did not receive any unique services or at least a level of quality that would warrant fees far greater than the competitive fees that would be offered by other providers as the plan was charged by Fidelity,” the lawsuit said.
The plaintiff also accused the defendants of “failing to offer, monitor and investigate lower cost mutual (fund) shares classes as plan investment options.”
“Since at least 2017,” defendants have offered high-cost mutual funds “even though at all times lower cost share classes of those exact same mutual funds were readily available to the plan,” the lawsuit said.
A company representative did not respond to a request for comment.
The CoreLogic Inc. 401(k) Savings Plan, Irvine, Calif., had assets of $741.9 million as of Dec. 31, 2021, according to the latest Form 5500.