The RiverSource fund fee suit just resurrected. In the Thursday Fund Track column in the Wall Street Journal, Sam Mamudi reports that the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last week overturned an earlier dismissal of the case, in which investors accused Ameriprise of breaching its fiduciary duty by charging RiverSource mutual fund shareholders more than institutional investors in its comparable separate account products. Given that such pricing discrepancies are standard, fundsters may want to keep an eye on this case.

RiverSource spokesman Charlie Keller was not immediately available for comment.

In the summer of 2007, a federal district court judge in Minnesota dismissed the case against Ameriprise (see MFWire, 7/18/2007). The new ruling from the Eighth Circuit presumably overturned that dismissal, presumably pushing the case back to a lower court and allowing it to go forward in open court, without in any way guaranteeing an outcome for either side.

The case isn't the only so-called "excessive fee" suit targeting a mutual fund company that's gained high court attention of late. Last month the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal in a similar lawsuit against Oakmark funds Harris Associate, a case that had been dismissed by the Seventh Circuit (see MFWire, 3/9/2009 and 3/19/2009). 

Edited by: Neil Anderson, Managing Editor


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