"In the wake of Fifth Third v. Dudenhoeffer, a complaint that seeks to hold an ERISA fiduciary liable for failing to divest a plan of employer stock based solely upon publicly available information fails to state a plausible claim. An 'independent' fiduciary -- by the nature of his outside status -- only has access to public information. For this reason, claims that an independent fiduciary breached his ERISA fiduciary duties in connection with publicly traded company stock necessarily fail post-Dudenhoeffer. The plaintiffs' bar may attempt to plead around this fatal flaw by claiming that appointing fiduciaries have some duty to 'disclose' nonpublic information to independent fiduciaries.... To impose such a disclosure obligation upon appointing fiduciaries would violate the securities laws or the 'objectives' of those laws, in direct contravention of the US Supreme Court's reasoning in Dudenhoeffer."  MORE >>