Schlichter Bogard, LLC represents participants of the $7 billion Charter Communications, Inc. 401(k) Savings Plan in a class action against Charter Communications, Inc.
The suit claims that rather than using the Plan’s forfeiture assets to pay all Plan administrative expenses, as required by the terms of the Plan, Charter used forfeitures to reduce the employer matching contributions.
The lawsuit claims that Section 6.9 of the Plan required, how Plan forfeiture assets would be used by Charter. Plan forfeiture assets were first required to be used to ‘pay Plan administrative expenses.
Charter reported in its 2019 Form 5500 that it used $16.3 million in Plan forfeiture assets to reduce its employer matching contributions, but in that same Form 5500 Charter reported that Plan participants were charged an allocation of administrative expenses paid by the Plan for $7.3 million. The suit says that Charter can only use forfeitures to reduce contributions after expenses have been paid.
