ERISA and prudent pleading

ERISA litigation about investment management presents a tension between the administrators’ fiduciary obligations, on the one hand, and discouraging needless litigation, on the other. After the Supreme Court’s most recent guidance about an ERISA fiduciary’s “duty of prudence” in Amgen Inc. v. Harris, 136 S. Ct. 758 (2016), the Fifth Circuit found that the plaintiffs in Whitley v. BP. PLC failed to meet their pleading burden: “The amended complaint states that BP’s stock was overvalued prior to the Deepwater Horizon explosion due to “numerous undisclosed safety breaches” known only to insiders. In other words, the stockholders theorize that BP stock was overpriced because BP had a greater risk exposure to potential accidents than was known to the market. Based on this fact alone, it does not seem reasonable to say that a prudent fiduciary at that time could not have concluded that (1) disclosure of such information to the public or (2) freezing trades of BP stock—both of which would likely lower the stock price—would do more harm than good. In fact, it seems that a prudent fiduciary could very easily conclude that such actions would do more harm than good.” No. 15-20282 (Sept. 26, 2016).