Laborers’ Local 265 Pension Fund v. iShares Trust

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Securities lending is a common practice: securities are temporarily transferred by the lender to a borrower, who is obliged to return the securities, either on demand, or at the end of any agreed term. For the period of the loan the lender is secured by acceptable collateral (in the U.S., often cash) valued at 102% [to] 105% of the market value of the loaned securities. The borrower may be motivated by desire to cover a short position, to sell the borrowed securities in hopes of buying them back at a lower price before returning them, or to gain tax advantages associated with the temporary transfer of ownership. The plaintiffs are pension funds that are shareholders in exchange-traded funds issued by iShares. iShares, as part of its mutual-fund operations, lends its securities holdings to various borrowers to generate substantial revenue. BTC, a related company, serves as iShares’s middleman between iShares and those who seek to borrow iShares’s securities and receives 35% of all securities-lending net revenue. BFA, another related company, is the investment adviser for iShares and manages its portfolios for a separate fee. Plaintiffs alleged that BFA and BTC violated the Investment Company Act, 15 U.S.C. 80a-35(a), (b), by charging an excessive lending fee because the fee charged by BTC bears no relationship to actual services rendered. The district court dismissed. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, finding that the Act does not create a private cause of action. View "Laborers' Local 265 Pension Fund v. iShares Trust" on Justia Law