Labor Department’s Hawaii Stock Plan Challenge Fails After Trial

The Labor Department lost its lawsuit accusing the former owners of a Hawaii architectural firm of offloading their stock to firm employees at an unfair price, when a federal judge ruled after trial that no ERISA violation had been proven.

The government failed to show that the $40 million paid by the Bowers + Kubota Consulting Inc. Employee Stock Ownership Plan in 2012 was an unfair price for the company’s stock, Judge Susan Oki Mollway of the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii ruled Sept. 17. The department can’t show that the $40 million price was inflated by ...