A pair of middle-American pension funds have launched a lawsuit against BlackRock (BLK), claiming that the company had systematically “looted” the proceeds from money they had invested in the company’s iShares ETFs.
According to Reuters and Bloomberg, the suit was filed on behalf of the Laborers’ Local 265 Pension Fund of Cincinatti and the Plumbers and Pipefitters Local No. 572 of Nashville, claiming that several of the iShares investments spent their money on “grossly excessive compensation” to agents associated with the ETFs.
The suit claims that BlackRock breached its duties as part of those transactions and asks for funds to be recovered for the pension fund investors.
The company’s iShares ETFs “systematically violated their fiduciary duties, setting up an excessive fee structure designed to loot securities lending returns properly due to iShares investors,” according to documentation in the suit, filed last month in the Middle District Court of Tennessee.