Posted on 01/13/2025 12:49:12 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
ESG investments tend to underperform traditional funds by approximately 10 percent, the judge observed.
A district court has ruled that American Airlines failed to prioritize the financial interests of its employees’ retirement funds by enabling fund managers to pursue environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investments.
The judgment came as part of a 2023 lawsuit filed against American Airlines and the company’s Employee Benefits Committee. The class action alleges that the defendants violated their duty of loyalty under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, which states that fiduciaries managing retirement investments must act in the best financial interest of the participants.
The defendants are alleged to have mismanaged their employees’ retirement assets—401(k) plans—when they hired investment managers pursuing ESG policies to handle the funds, especially BlackRock.
ESG looks at nonmonetary factors while making investment decisions. This includes a company’s carbon footprint and chemical emissions, how a business addresses LGBT interests and other political initiatives, and whether a company adopts such programs in its hiring practices.
The plaintiffs said BlackRock pursued an agenda to convert their retirement plans’ core index portfolios into ESG funds and that BlackRock’s actions harmed retirement plan participants because such investments pursued socio-political outcomes rather than financial returns.
On Jan. 10, Judge Reed O’Connor from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas agreed with the plaintiffs, saying “the facts compellingly demonstrated that Defendants breached their fiduciary duty by failing to loyally act solely in the retirement plan’s best financial interests.”
(Excerpt) Read more at theepochtimes.com ...
We don't need no stinking "fiduciary responsibility!"
The court should order each employee should receive compensation in the amount of $100,000 per each year of the fraud they were subjected to.
The American empire is at “connected-insiders and elites mass looting” stage.
If Trump loses the stock goes up-wouldn’t you say?
Invest in rope futures.
Another nail in the DIE coffin?
Hopefully a nail in BlackRock’s coffin too.
As a retired 150,000 mile per year business traveler, American was the tops.
Bungled mergers and bad choices with whom to merge has brought them down to just another commodity carrier.
These are criminal offences. The offenders belong broke and in prison.
IMHO it was a backdoor way to implement ESG. Want to maintain your financial license? The govt can use the stricter BI methodologies to make sure you push ESG.
ESG: Extra Stupid Government.
I would like to see Blackrock die an ugly death and go away. I have hated them for as long as I can remember. Right up there with bank of america and MLPFS.
Vanguard is right up there with BlackRock.
There are state and local governments who are investing their employees pension funds with black and women-run companies, despite knowing the returns are significantly underperforming regular funds.
Expect them to be next.
I do not frequent them either but think they are only slightly less vile.
Sounds like a savvy analysis there, Tell It Right.
Now, if we could only apply fudiciary responsibility to California politicians who destroy the wealth of their citizens by their incompetence.
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