Rules & Regulations Court Rules on 'Actual Knowledge' T he U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia's Atlanta Division has ruled once again in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) lawsuit filed against SunTrust Bank. The underlying lawsuit alleges that the bank's 401(k) plan engaged in corporate self-dealing at the expense of plan participants. The lead plaintiff suggests that plan officials violated their fiduciary duties of loyalty and prudence by selecting a series of proprietary funds that were more expensive and performed worse than other funds they could have included in the plan, and by repeatedly failing to remove or replace the funds. In 2014, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had previously ruled in this matter. Although the court disagreed with the District Court's initial dismissal of certain claims based on ERISA's threeyear statute of limitations, it found all of the claims were nonetheless time-barred by ERISA's six-year statute of limitations. The latest ruling out of the Georgia District Court comes on the defendants' motion for summary judgment on Count VIII of the plaintiffs' second amended consolidated class-action complaint. In its ruling, the District Court grants summary judgment on behalf of the defense. Case documents show that Count VIII alleges certain defendants " were aware that their predecessor fiduciaries had breached their duties in selecting funds and thus breached their own duties by failing to take adequate steps to remedy, within the class period, their predecessors' 10 PLANSPONSOR.com August - September 2019 Art by Dadu Shin breaches in selecting the funds at issue. " Although the decision ultimately sides with the defense, it goes into significant detail regarding the sketchiness of committee meeting minutes as to genuine deliberation over the investment menu during the class period. In its analysis of the facts and legal standards applying in this case, the District Court states that " the issue on this motion for summary judgment is a narrow one. " It simply concerns the predecessor fiduciaries' initial selection process for the affiliated funds and whether the successor fiduciary defendants may be held liable for failing to remedy those allegedly imprudent selections. " Defendants argue that, for them to be held liable for breaches by thehttp://www.plansponsordigital.com/plansponsor/august-september_2019/TrackLink.action?pageName=10&exitLink=http%3A%2F%2FPLANSPONSOR.com