Coca-Cola Bottlers' Association will pay $3.3 million to settle a lawsuit accusing the association's 401(k) plan of violating ERISA because it charged excessive record-keeping fees and offered expensive, poor-performing investment options.
The settlement terms were announced March 23 in a document filed by plaintiffs' lawyers in a U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kan. The court must approve a final settlement.
The parties, which achieved the settlement through mediation, reached a preliminary agreement in October. At the time, they didn't reveal the terms in Anderson et al. vs. Coca-Cola Bottlers' Association et al.
"Defendants strongly dispute plaintiffs' allegations and deny liability for the alleged ERISA violations," the settlement document said.
"Though plaintiffs believe there is strong legal and factual support for their claims, they also recognize there are significant costs and delays, as well as inherent risks, in taking any litigation to completion," the document said."This is especially true in complex ERISA 401(k) cases like this one."
The association's 401(k) plan is a multiemployer plan for 65 U.S. independent bottlers.
The association and its 401(k) plan fiduciaries were sued in February 2021 by a former employee of Heartland Coca-Cola Bottling Co. LLC, a Lenexa, Kan.-based member of the association and multiemployer plan employer. Since then, one plaintiff was added to the lawsuit, which was amended four times.
Coca-Cola Bottlers' Association 401(k) Retirement Savings Plan, Atlanta, had $1.1 billion million in assets as of Dec. 31, 2021, according to the latest Form 5500.
