FAYETTEVILLE, ARK. — A federal judge in Arkansas agreed to dismiss a pending class action complaint that dealt with alleged 401(k) recordkeeping (RKA) decisions made by Tyson Foods Inc. that resulted in high fees. 

The ruling by Judge Timothy L. Brooks, in the United States District Court Western District of Arkansas Fayetteville Division found that the plaintiffs, which included three Tyson employees, did not meet the legal standard of comparing the company’s plan fees to those of similar plans. 

“The court finds that plaintiffs have failed to allege a plausible interference that Tyson’s plan and the comparator plans charged different fees for the same Bundled RKA services,” Brooks wrote in the court document.

For a second reason, Brooks stated that the case needs to be dismissed because the plans are not similar enough to Tyson’s regarding asset size to allow meaningful comparisons. 

The plaintiffs previously argued in December 2023 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 complaint stated last year.

Details from the complaint showed 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.