UnitedHealth Certified ERISA Class Action

Snyder v. UnitedHealth Group, et al.

Case type: ERISA

Filed in: United States District Court for the District of Minnesota

Docket: Case No. 21-cv-1049 (JRT/BRT)

Case Summary

The class action is brought on behalf of over 150,000 individuals who were invested in the Wells Fargo Target Fund Suite through the UnitedHealth Group 401(k) Savings Plan. The Wells Fargo Target Fund Suite was one of the worst-performing target date options in the entire market, and the case alleges that UnitedHealth’s decision to keep the Suite as the default investment for the Plan for over a decade violated ERISA’s fiduciary duties of prudence and loyalty, among other violations.

The case presents a detailed chronology of UnitedHealth’s decision-making behind closed doors, including the role played by UnitedHealth’s CFO, John Rex. As the amended complaint alleges, Wells Fargo was a critical customer and financier for UnitedHealth, and UnitedHealth’s executive leadership personally intervened to keep the Wells Fargo Target Fund Suite on UnitedHealth’s 401(k) Plan to garner favor with, and benefit, Wells Fargo. To justify keeping the poorly performing Wells Fargo Target Fund Suite, UnitedHealth allegedly kept its decision-making secret and threw out key findings that the Plan’s own Investment Committee had made, while abandoning the Plan’s written criteria for screening investments.