July 7, 2022
A Maryland federal judge gave the final stamp of approval to a $7 million settlement between T. Rowe Price and a group of retirees who claimed the company mismanaged their retirement savings, after the judge had asked them to limit the scope of the pact.
U.S. District Judge James K. Bredar in an order on Wednesday approved the settlement after the parties made alterations based on earlier suggestions of the court. The judge had requested the changes to the settlement terms that he said had extended beyond the proposed class’s allegations.
The parties had modified a section of the claim release that uses “or” instead of “including” at the judge’s request, because he said it would more clearly delineate the outer limits of the settlement. The class had first asked Judge Bredar in April to approve the final settlement.
The class of more than 18,000 T. Rowe Price retirement plan participants had claimed in their February 2017 lawsuit that the asset management company cost its workers $123 million by loading up its retirement plan with more expensive in-house investments, violating the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.
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The class is represented by Douglas J. McNamara, Mary J. Bortscheller, Michelle C. Yau and Scott Michael Lempert of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC and James Brian McTigue and James A. Moore of McTigue Law LLP.