Current and former employees of Live Nation Entertainment sued the company and its 401(k) plan fiduciaries, alleging the plan violated ERISA by failing to offer lower-cost mutual fund shares, charging excessive fees and failing to offer a less expensive stable value option.
"Defendants invested plan funds in high-cost mutual fund share classes when lower cost share classes were available that were identical to the funds chosen, but for their cost and their adverse effect on performance," said the complaint filed March 15 in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.
"The flawed fiduciary process employed by defendants resulted in the selection of high-cost funds, and those funds performed poorly relative to their applicable benchmarks and necessarily relative to their lower cost share options," said the complaint in Avecilla et al. vs. Live Nation Entertainment Inc. et al.
"A prudent fiduciary conducting an impartial review of the plan's investments would have identified the cheaper share classes available and transferred the plan's investments in the above-referenced funds into the lower share classes at the earliest opportunity," the plaintiffs wrote. They are seeking class-action status.
A company representative did not respond to a request for comment.
Live Nation Entertainment Inc. 401(k) Savings Plan, Hollywood, Calif., had $769 million in assets as of Dec. 31, 2021, according to the latest Form 5500.
