Case: Bank Accused of Charging Excessive Tax Preparation Fees (D. Mass.)

Class certification was proper for all personal trusts since 2008 for which BNY Mellon served as a trustee, BNY Mellon charged a line-item tax-preparation fee, and PricewaterhouseCoopers prepared the trust tax returns, a district court held in removing trusts that were charged a bundled fee from the proposed class. The plaintiffs produced no evidence that the bundled fee simply rolled over the prior line-item tax-preparation fee (and its alleged markup) into a new, less transparent format, the court found in granting the bank’s partial motion for summary judgment regarding breach of fiduciary duty to those charged a bundled fee. [ ...