⚖ Oral Arguments, with Context

The Supreme Court hears a dispute over how Intel's retirement-plan managers invested employees' savings. After the two-thousand-eight financial crisis, the managers shifted more money into hedge funds and private equity as part of a strategy intended to limit losses when markets fell. Two former Intel employees sued the plan fiduciaries, the people responsible for those investment decisions, alleging high fees and returns below comparable investments. The managers answer that protecting against downturns can mean giving up some gains when the stock market rises. The workers rely on ERISA, the federal law governing these employer retirement plans, and its requirement that plan managers act prudently. That duty concerns a careful investment process under the circumstances, not a guarantee of the best returns. The trial court dismissed their amended complaint before trial, and the Ninth Circuit upheld that decision. The appeals court found that their performance comparisons did not adequately account for differences in the funds' investment goals and risks. At issue now is what workers must put in their complaint when they use poor investment performance to allege mismanagement: must they identify a meaningfully similar investment that did better? The question is whether the lawsuit can proceed, not whether the workers have already proved their case. Matthew Wessler, of Gupta Wessler, will speak for the workers. He will urge the Court to assess the complaint as a whole, rather than discard performance allegations that lack the required benchmark.

Anderson v. Intel Corp. Investment Policy Committee (No. 25-498) — Supreme Court of the United States, argued October 6, 2026.