Sentry Equipment Suit by DOL Will Proceed to District Court
Executive Director
The Department of Labor alleges that the trustee of the ESOP at Sentry Equipment Erectors should not have relied on the valuation report for a $21 million transaction. In the case (Acosta v. Vinoskey, No. 6:16-cv-00062-NKM-RSB, 2018 BL 134718 [W.D. Va. Apr. 17, 2018]) (PDF of opinion), Senior Judge Norman K. Moon of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia ruled that an employee of the ESOP trustee, Evolve Bank, could not be personally held liable as a trustee. In a previous ruling Judge Moon had allowed claims against the employee, Michael New, to proceed, but ruled here that New did not have final approval over the ESOP transaction and was therefore not a fiduciary. The judge allowed the DOL's expert witness, Dana Messina, to give limited testimony, rejecting other parts of the testimony, calling the theory of damages he presented "novel and underdeveloped."