Beck v PACE

The Supreme Court unanimously reversed the ridiculous 9th Circuit decision in Beck v PACE which stated that a merger is a permissible means of plan termination, much to the amazement of the Department of Labor, and that the company therefore had a fiduciary obligation to seriously consider a merger proposal, which it had failed to do.

Justice Scalia, writing for the Court, started off by presenting the fiduciary issue and then went on to acknowledge the plausibility of PACE’s argument. He immediately sidestepped the interesting fiduciary issue and launched into a non-fiduciary analysis from which it would never return. The Court restricted its analysis to whether a plan can be terminated through a plan merger. Ultimately, the answer was no.

It's a shame that the Court chose not to take up the fiduciary question. I swear more bad law comes out of the 9th Circuit than all the other courts of appeal put together. I would have liked the Court to go on record that BOTH parts of the decision were ludicrous, rather than restricting themselves to just one part of the decision.

Reference: http://www.thompson.com/public/headlines.jsp?id=71