A U.S. District Court judge in Atlanta granted the request by Invesco Holding Co. to dismiss all fiduciary breach claims by a participant in the company's 401(k) plan who alleged, among other things, that Invesco packed the investment lineup with proprietary products.
"Defendants move to dismiss all claims for failure to state a claim" under the federal rules of civil procedure, wrote U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg on Sept. 25. She added that defendants argued that two of the six allegations should be dismissed due to ERISA's statute of limitations on filing fiduciary breach complaints.
The judge agreed with Invesco, but also allowed the plaintiff to file an amended complaint within 20 days in the case of Cervantes vs. Invesco Holding Co. (US) Inc. et al. Defendants include several Invesco affiliates, subsidiaries and executives who manage the 401(k) plan and provided products and services to it.
Although the plan participant contended that managers continued to offer allegedly poor-performing investments, the judge questioned the scope of this argument. "The fact that (the) plaintiff has alleged a single instance of a questionable decision by defendants in the last six years does not in and of itself create an inference of wrongdoing," the judge wrote.
Acknowledging "the possibility that a 'more carefully drafted complaint' could state a claim, the court must give (the) plaintiff the opportunity to try," the judge wrote. The Invesco 401(k) Plan had assets of $975.4 million as of Dec. 31, 2018, according to the latest Form 5500.
