A claim has been filed by two grocery store retirees and an employee in an Ontario court that seeks class-action status for about 300,000 beneficiaries of the Canadian Commercial Workers Industry Pension Plan(CCWIPP), according to a newspaper report.
The plan allegedly lost more than $1 billion because of negligence by trustees, including supermarket chain representatives, the claim states.
CCWIPP is jointly governed by 10 trustees, five appointed by the United Food and Commercial Workers and five appointed by employers such as Safeway, Loblaw, A&P and Metro Richelieu.
Last year, the Financial Services Commission of Ontario(FSCO)laid regulatory non-compliance charges against trustees of the plan during 2002 and 2003 for “failing to exercise the care, diligence and skills in the administration and investment of the pension fund that a person of ordinary prudence would exercise and for failing to supervise the investment committee as agent of the board in a prudent and reasonable manner and for failing to comply with certain quantitative investment limits.”
The trustees, who cooperated fully with FSCO throughout the examination, deny that they breached their statutory obligations to the plan members, and state that they have always acted in the best interests of the plan and its members.
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