FAYETTEVILLE, ARK. — In a class action complaint, three Tyson employees filed a lawsuit dealing with 401(k) recordkeeping (RKA) decisions made by the company that allegedly resulted in high fees.

The lawsuit stated that Tyson paid excessive fees to Northwest Plan Services Inc., which administered the 401(k) plan.

According to court documents submitted by Tyson, the company had more than 67,200 participants in the 401(k) plan in 2022 with $3.2 billion in assets.

The first allegation from the plaintiffs said that Tyson paid a “75% premium per participant for Total RKA fees” for the plan.

“Defendants should have lowered its total RKA fees by soliciting bids from competing providers and using its massive size and correspondent bargaining power to negotiate for fee rebates, but it did not do so, or did so ineffectively, during the class period,” the lawsuit said.

The employees also allege that Tyson breached its fiduciary duty by “… failing to monitor those individuals responsible for paying these unreasonable Total RKA fees.”

Documents submitted by Tyson stated that the RKA fee incurred per Tyson employee in 2018 using Northwest service fees was $41. Defendants compared publicly available plans run by Fidelity, which stood between $28-$33 for 2018.

In 2022, the lawsuit said Tyson employees were charged a $42 per fee.

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit stated that they are looking to cover retirement plan participants starting Nov. 30, 2017, and go through the date of judgment.

Tyson Foods declined to comment on the ongoing litigation when reached by MEAT+POULTRY.