Published
July 30, 2026
This settlement resolves claims that the fiduciaries of the Smith & Nephew U.S. Savings Plan let participants pay too much for the plan's managed account service. If you had money in that 401(k) plan at any point between August 30, 2018 and May 13, 2026, there is no claim form to file — your share of the $350,000 fund is calculated for you and paid automatically.
Current Status
There is no claim form in this settlement. If you were a participant in or a beneficiary of the Smith & Nephew U.S. Savings Plan at any time between August 30, 2018 and May 13, 2026, your share of the $350,000 fund is calculated for you and paid automatically. The Court has granted preliminary approval and preliminarily certified the settlement class, and the final approval hearing is set for September 18, 2026 at 2:00 p.m. before Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton in Boston. As of July 30, 2026, no final approval order had been entered and no payment date had been announced. You cannot exclude yourself — the Notice says the class was certified as a mandatory class — but you can object in writing, postmarked no later than September 4, 2026.
Status
Pending Final Approval
Fairness hearing September 18, 2026
Object By
September 4, 2026
Postmark deadline · there is no opt-out right
Estimated Payout
Pro rata share of $350,000
Based on your average Plan account balance · shares calculated under $10 pay $0
Proof Required
Automatic Payment
No claim form to file — your share is credited or distributed for you
What Changed Recently?
The parties signed the Settlement Agreement and Stipulation on February 12, 2026 and filed it with the District of Massachusetts on February 13, 2026. The Court later granted preliminary approval, preliminarily certified the settlement class, and scheduled the final approval hearing for September 18, 2026. Under the agreement, the class period closes on the date the preliminary approval order was entered, and the court-authorized Notice fixes that closing date at May 13, 2026. The agreement required the Settlement Administrator to mail notice at least 60 days before the hearing, which put the mailing on or before July 20, 2026, and the official settlement website is now live.The underlying case is Nykiel v. Smith & Nephew, Inc., Case No. 1:24-cv-12247-NMG, filed August 30, 2024 and amended on November 22, 2024. The operative complaint brought five claims under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act against Smith & Nephew, its board of directors, and its US Pension and Benefits Executive Committee, alleging they were fiduciaries of the Smith & Nephew U.S. Savings Plan and breached duties they owed to the plan.
Not all of those claims survived. The Settlement Agreement states the Court granted the motion to dismiss in part, dismissing Counts I through III — the prohibited-transaction claims about allegedly excessive recordkeeping fees and about the plan's forfeiture account being used to pay those fees and to offset future employer contributions — for failure to state a claim. What remained was a claim that the Committee breached ERISA's duty of prudence by allowing excessive managed account service fees, and a derivative claim that the company and its board failed to monitor the Committee on that issue. The settlement resolves those remaining claims.
Smith & Nephew denies every allegation of wrongdoing and contends it has no liability. The agreement states the defendants specifically deny that they breached any fiduciary duty or any other provision of ERISA in connection with the plan's administrative fees or expenses, and the settlement is not an admission of fault by anyone. Both sides say they reached the agreement through arm's-length negotiations after their own experts analyzed the plan's fee data.
Who Qualifies?
The Settlement Class is every person who was a participant in or a beneficiary of the Smith & Nephew U.S. Savings Plan at any time between August 30, 2018 and May 13, 2026. That is the whole test. You did not need to use the managed account service, you did not need to still be employed by Smith & Nephew, and you did not need to have any particular balance.The settlement splits the class into two groups only for the purpose of paying people. A Current Participant is a class member with an Active Account — a Plan account with a balance greater than $0.00 — as of the date the preliminary approval order was entered. A Former Participant is a class member who does not. Beneficiaries entitled to receive death benefits under the plan are covered as well.
There is no exclusion right here. The Notice states the class was preliminarily certified as a mandatory class, which means you cannot opt out to pursue your own case over these claims. If the Court approves the settlement, every class member is bound by the release and by any judgment entered in the case.
How Much Can You Get?
Smith & Nephew or its fiduciary liability insurer will pay a Gross Settlement Amount of $350,000. That figure is a cap: the agreement says it is the full and sole monetary payment, and neither the company nor its insurer will pay anything more in connection with the settlement.Class members are paid out of the Net Settlement Amount, which is what remains after the Court approves the deductions the agreement allows:
• Attorneys' fees and costs for Class Counsel, capped at one-third of the fund. The Notice describes the cap as 33%, or $115,500, plus out-of-pocket costs.
• Case contribution awards for the class representatives, which Class Counsel may request at up to $10,000 each.
• Administrative expenses, including notice and settlement administration. The Notice says Class Counsel believe those fees and expenses will not exceed $100,000.
• A contingency reserve of up to $10,000 for expenses that come in late or for data and calculation corrections.
Neither the Notice nor the agreement publishes an estimated per-person payment, and no estimate should be inferred from the fund size alone. For scale only: if the Court were to award every one of the items above at its stated ceiling, roughly $104,500 would be left to divide among the class. The Court decides each of those amounts at the fairness hearing, so the real figure is not known yet.
Whatever remains is divided pro rata under the Plan of Allocation. The Settlement Administrator calculates an Average Account Balance for each class member from that person's annual year-end account balances in the plan during the class period, adds those averages together across the class, and pays each person the same proportional share of the Net Settlement Amount. One threshold matters: if a calculated share comes to less than $10.00, the Plan of Allocation sets that share at zero.
The settlement also includes relief that is not cash. Smith & Nephew agreed to direct the plan's fiduciaries to run a request for proposal for the managed account services offered under the plan on or before December 31, 2027. The timing and manner of that process are left to the fiduciaries' discretion.
What Proof or Notice ID Is Required?
None. There is no claim form, no Class Member ID, no PIN, and no documentation to upload or mail. This is why the facts strip above reads Automatic Payment rather than Proof Required: Yes or No — there is no claim to prove up in the first place.The Settlement Administrator builds the class list from data supplied by Smith & Nephew and the plan's recordkeeper, including names, addresses, dates of employment, and year-end account balances across the class period. Class Counsel do not receive class members' personally identifiable information; the agreement requires the administrator to work from an anonymous numerical identification system instead.
Payment then follows automatically along the two-group split described above. Current Participants have their share allocated into their Plan account by the recordkeeper. Former Participants receive a distribution from the Settlement Administrator. The only thing worth doing is making sure your mailing address is current, which you can handle through the contact page on the official settlement website.
What Is the Deadline?
There is no claim deadline, because there is no claim. The dates that do apply are these:• Objections must be postmarked no later than September 4, 2026 and mailed to the Court and to both sides' counsel at the addresses printed in the official Notice. The Notice does not specify a timezone; it is a postmark deadline.
• A Notice of Intention to Appear, required if you want to speak at the hearing, carries the same September 4, 2026 postmark deadline and is only available to class members who filed an objection.
• Class Counsel's petition for attorneys' fees and expenses was due by August 4, 2026 under the Notice, after which it is posted to the settlement website.
• The final approval hearing is September 18, 2026 at 2:00 p.m.
An objection must include the case caption, your name, address, telephone number, signature, and the reasons you object, and it must be signed by the class member personally even if a lawyer is representing you. There is no exclusion deadline because the class is mandatory.
How Do You Take Action?
For nearly everyone in the class, the action is none. If the Court approves the settlement and you are entitled to a payment under the Plan of Allocation, you receive it without doing anything.Two situations call for a step. If your mailing address has changed, use the contact page on the official settlement website so the administrator can reach you — that site also hosts the complaint, the Settlement Agreement and its exhibits, the Notice, the Plan of Allocation, the fee petition, and the Court's orders. And if you disagree with the settlement or with the fee request, you can object by following the instructions in the Notice and mailing your objection so it is postmarked by September 4, 2026.
One caution about the website: the agreement requires the Settlement Administrator to take it down no later than one year after the Final Approval Order is entered, so download anything you want to keep.
What Happens Next?
An Independent Fiduciary retained by Smith & Nephew is reviewing the settlement on behalf of the plan and must approve and authorize it in writing at least 21 days before the fairness hearing. That review is a real condition, not a formality: if the Independent Fiduciary does not approve, and the parties do not agree to modify the settlement, the defendants can terminate it. Its fees are paid by Smith & Nephew rather than out of the $350,000.At the September 18, 2026 hearing, the Court will consider whether the settlement is fair, reasonable, and adequate, hear any objections, and rule on the fee petition and the case contribution awards. A hearing being held is not the same as approval being granted, and the Court can move the date.
If the Court does approve it, the agreement treats the Final Approval Order as Final 30 calendar days after entry when no appeal is filed; if someone appeals, it is not Final until that is resolved. The remaining $300,000 of the fund is due to the settlement account within 30 calendar days after the Settlement Effective Date, with the first $50,000 having been paid earlier to cover notice and initial administration. Distribution to class members follows after that. No payment date has been announced.
Money does not leak out of the class if checks go unused. Payments that remain uncashed 180 days after distribution, and anything left in the fund after distribution and expenses, are paid to the plan to defray its administrative fees and expenses.
If you want the fuller background on how these cases work, our explainer on 401(k) ERISA class actions covers the recurring fee theories, and two closely comparable auto-pay settlements are the Capital One 401(k) ERISA settlement and the NextEra Energy retirement savings plan settlement.
Sources and Verification
• Official settlement website: Smith and Nephew ERISA Settlement• Notice of Class Action Settlement, Nykiel, et al. v. Smith & Nephew, Inc., et al., Case No. 1:24-cv-12247-NMG (D. Mass.)
• Settlement Agreement and Stipulation, filed February 13, 2026 as Exhibit A to Document 82-1 on the case docket
• Docket, Nykiel v. Smith & Nephew, Inc., No. 1:24-cv-12247 (D. Mass.), via CourtListener
Questions
Do I have to file a claim to get paid from the Smith & Nephew ERISA settlement?
No. There is no claim form. The Settlement Administrator identifies class members from Smith & Nephew's records and the Plan's recordkeeper, calculates each share, and pays it. If you still have an active Plan account, your share is allocated to that account. If you do not, the Settlement Administrator distributes your share to you directly.
How is each person's share of the Smith & Nephew settlement calculated?
The Plan of Allocation uses an Average Account Balance. The Settlement Administrator averages each class member's annual year-end account balances in the Plan across the class period, adds those averages together for everyone in the class, and pays each person the same proportional share of the Net Settlement Amount. If a calculated share comes to less than $10.00, the Plan of Allocation sets that share at zero.
I no longer work at Smith & Nephew. Am I still included?
Yes, if you were a participant in or a beneficiary of the Smith & Nephew U.S. Savings Plan at any time between August 30, 2018 and May 13, 2026. The settlement calls someone without an active Plan account a Former Participant. Former Participants receive their share as a distribution from the Settlement Administrator instead of a credit to a Plan account.
Can I exclude myself from the Smith & Nephew ERISA settlement?
No. The Notice states the class was preliminarily certified as a mandatory class, so there is no opt-out right and no exclusion deadline. Class members who disagree with the settlement can object in writing instead, postmarked no later than September 4, 2026, using the instructions in the official Notice.
What did the court already decide before the parties settled?
The Settlement Agreement states the Court granted the motion to dismiss in part, dismissing Counts I through III — the prohibited-transaction claims about recordkeeping fees and the Plan's forfeiture account — for failure to state a claim. What remained were a duty-of-prudence claim against the Committee over managed account service fees and a derivative failure-to-monitor claim against the company and its board. The settlement resolves those remaining claims without any ruling on their merits.
Official Settlement Notice
For more class actions keep scrolling below.
Settlement Amount
$350,000
Case Title
Nykiel, et al. v. Smith & Nephew, Inc., et al.
Case Number
1:24-cv-12247-NMG
Court
U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts
Final Approval Hearing
September 18, 2026 at 2:00 PM
Before Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton, Courtroom 4, John Joseph Moakley U.S. Courthouse, Boston
Official Website
Smith and Nephew ERISA Settlement
