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In the second case in the last two months on this topic, a court has ruled that an ESOP trustee cannot be indemnified for breaches of fiduciary duty that involve an ESOP if the indemnification comes out of corporate assets. In Fernandez et al. v. K-M Industries Holding Co., No.

In Smith v. Delta Airlines, No. 1:04-CV-2592-ODE, (N.D. Ga., 3/31/06), a federal district court ruled that fiduciaries of Delta Airline's ESOP did not have a duty to diversify out of Delta stock even though the company was under great financial pressure.

A new study estimates the amount of employer stock held in 401(k) plans to be higher than previously reported.

A second large staffing company has become almost 100% ESOP-owned. Burnett Staffing has almost 7,100 employees. The Houston-based company decided to become an ESOP after hearing about Penmac Staffing in Springfield, Mo., which has about 14,000 employees.

We recently reported on a new model for employee ownership developed for Continental AG, one of Germany's largest firms. Now Deutsche Telekom AG, the German telephone monopoly, has come up with yet another approach.

The "Broad-Based Stock Option Plan Transparency Act" (H.R. 3574), sponsored by Rep.

Apis & Heritage Capital Partners (A&H), a middle-market mezzanine debt firm with the mission of closing the racial wealth gap using employee ownership, has released its first annual impact report, highlighting some of the successes of its initia

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed a lower court finding that an executive who missed the deadline for exercising options was not entitled to compensation (Ostler v. Codman Research Group, Inc., 1st Cir., No. 99-2367, 3/2/01).

In Allen v. GreatBanc Trust Co., the Seventh Circuit overturned a lower court ruling that dismissed a case over an ESOP valuation at the ESOP for Personal Touch Company. The company's stock price dropped just over 50% after the valuation.

Apple CEO Tim Cook, whose compensation package is valued at $378 million, will give up $75 million in dividends on his restricted stock and instead use that to pay dividends on the restricted stock held by employees. Currently, the awards held by employees broadly do not pay dividends.