Two former employees of Land O' Lakes Inc. have sued the dairy cooperative alleging that fiduciaries of its 401(k) plan violated their ERISA duties.
They accused the plan fiduciaries of "failing to objectively and adequately review the plan's investment portfolio with due care to ensure that each investment option was prudent, in terms of cost," said the complaint filed May 26 in a U.S. District Court in St. Paul, Minn.
They also criticized the fiduciaries for "maintaining certain funds in the plan despite the availability of identical or similar investment options with lower costs and/or better performance histories," said the complaint in the case of Parmer et al. vs. Land O' Lakes Inc. et al.
The plaintiffs, who are seeking class-action status, also contended that fiduciaries "failed to utilize lower-cost share class for many of the mutual funds within the plan." They argued that fiduciaries didn't consider offering "lower cost collective trusts ... as alternatives to certain mutual funds in the plan."
Land O' Lakes is reviewing the complaint, spokeswoman Brooke Dillon wrote in an email. " We take our commitment to employees and obligations to those plans very seriously," she wrote. "We are confident that the court will find that we have managed these programs appropriately."
The Land O' Lakes Employee Savings & Supplemental Retirement Plan, St. Paul, Minn., had assets of $1.43 billion as of Dec. 31, 2018, according to the latest Form 5500.
