Court (Again) Rebuffs Amended Data Breach Suit

“A participant-plaintiff’s revised attempt to hold the plan sponsor liable as a fiduciary for theft from her 401(k) account has, once again, fallen short.

The suit, originally filed against the fiduciaries of the Abbott Labs retirement plan and Alight Solutions, LLC, the recordkeeper for the plan, alleged that the defendants “failed to enforce a security question routine set up for security purposes on the Defendants’ website” … and “instead simply provided a one-time code over the phone that was used to loot Ms. Bartnett’s account.” And then, “rather than communicating with Ms. Bartnett via email concerning changes to her account, as Defendants knew Ms. Bartnett preferred, they mailed notices, allowing the theft to be consummated and $245,000 to be transferred out of the country via email to an Indian IP address before Ms. Bartnett could take any steps to halt the fraud.” Ms. Bartnett is, of course, the plaintiff in the case.” Continue reading.

Source: National Association of Plan Advisors
7-minute read.