This settlement resolves claims that Ricoh USA and the fiduciaries of its 401(k) plan let recordkeeping fees run too high, kept an imprudent stable value fund on the menu, and spent forfeited employer money on the company's own contributions instead of on plan expenses. If you were in the Ricoh USA, Inc. Retirement Savings Plan at any point since February 2016, you share in $1,750,000 without filing anything — and you cannot opt out, so the one date that matters is the September 21, 2026 objection deadline.
Current Status
There is no claim form and no claim deadline. If you were a participant, your share is calculated from the plan's own records and paid to you automatically. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania has preliminarily approved the settlement and preliminarily certified the class, and the Fairness Hearing is scheduled for October 8, 2026 at 9:30 a.m. in Philadelphia; no final approval order has been entered, so no payment date has been announced. Two features make this settlement unusual and worth reading carefully: the class was certified as a non-opt-out class, so no one can exclude themselves, and the only action available to a class member is a written objection filed by September 21, 2026.What Changed Recently?
The parties reached this settlement on November 5, 2025 and executed the agreement on February 5, 2026. The court has since granted preliminary approval and preliminarily certified the settlement class, which is what put postcard notice in the mail, posted the long-form notice, and set the September 21 and October 8 dates. Analytics LLC is administering the settlement.The litigation is actually two cases. The first was filed in 2022 and reached its operative complaint on December 27, 2022; a second suit was filed on August 13, 2025. Both assert ERISA claims about how the Ricoh USA, Inc. Retirement Savings Plan was managed, operated and administered, and the parties moved to consolidate them for settlement purposes. Class counsel reviewed plan governing documents, participant communications and U.S. Department of Labor filings, and the parties went through document discovery before turning to mediation.
The defendants — Ricoh USA, Inc., its Board of Directors, and the Ricoh Retirement Plans Committee — deny every claim and deny any liability or wrongful conduct of any kind. They say they administered the plan properly, prudently and in the best interests of participants, and they would have argued that even if a duty had been breached, the plan and its participants suffered no loss. No court has found them liable. The agreement is explicit that it is not an admission of wrongdoing or of fiduciary status.
What Are the Allegations?
The notice describes three alleged breaches of the ERISA duties of care and prudence.- Recordkeeping fees. The named plaintiffs allege the defendants failed to prudently monitor and control the recordkeeping fees charged to participants. Recordkeeping is the administrative back office of a retirement plan — the account statements, the transaction processing, the participant website.
- The Ricoh Stable Value Fund. They allege that offering this fund as an investment option was unreasonable and imprudent. The defendants respond that they had a thorough monitoring process that more than satisfied their duties.
- Forfeitures. They allege the defendants used forfeited employer contributions — money left behind by participants who left before vesting — to offset the company's other employer contributions rather than to pay plan expenses. Where that money goes is the difference between the employer saving money and participants saving money.
Who Qualifies?
The settlement class is all persons who participated in the plan at any time during the class period, including any beneficiary of a deceased person who participated during the class period, and any alternate payee of a person subject to a qualified domestic relations order who participated during the class period. Excluded are the defendants and their beneficiaries.The class period runs from February 22, 2016 to March 24, 2026. The settlement agreement defines the end of the class period as the date of the preliminary approval order, which is where that March 2026 date comes from — so the class reaches right up to the present rather than stopping years ago.
The plan is the Ricoh USA, Inc. Retirement Savings Plan together with each of its predecessor plans, successor plans, and merged or acquired plans. That matters if you came to Ricoh through an acquisition: a plan that was folded into the Ricoh plan can still put you in the class. Participation is what counts, not current employment and not a current account balance — people who left the company and rolled their money out are covered for the quarters their balance existed.
How Much Can You Get?
No per-person figure has been published, and none can be until the deductions are quantified. What the settlement fixes is the formula.The gross settlement amount is $1,750,000 in cash, and the agreement says the defendants will have it paid directly by their fiduciary liability insurer. It is the full and sole monetary payment; no additional money is coming from the defendants. Deducted from it, subject to court approval, are attorneys' fees of no more than one-third of the fund ($583,333.33 at the cap), litigation costs of no more than $50,000, case contribution awards of up to $5,000 for each of the four class representatives, administrative expenses, and a contingency reserve for costs and data corrections. At the caps and before administrative expenses and the reserve, roughly $1.1 million would remain — that is arithmetic from the notice, not a figure the settlement publishes, and the court can award less.
The remainder is the Net Settlement Amount, and it is divided by account balance rather than by head count. The administrator adds up your plan account balance as of the end of each quarter from February 2016 through December 2025 to produce your Balance, sums that figure across all class members, and gives you the same fraction of the fund that your Balance is of the total. If you closed your account mid-period, your balance counts as zero for the quarters after your distribution. The practical effect is that a long-tenured participant with a large balance receives many times what a short-tenured one does.
Two floors can zero you out. A current participant whose preliminary entitlement calculates to $0 receives no distribution, and a former participant entitled to $9.99 or less receives none either. The administrator then recalculates without those participants so the remaining shares consume the full net amount, and it may adjust the $9.99 threshold if the distribution would otherwise not work.
How Will You Be Paid?
The payment route depends on whether you still have money in the plan, and the difference is worth knowing because only one of the two routes can go astray in the mail.- If you have an active plan account with a positive balance, your share is deposited straight into that account. It is invested according to your investment elections on file for new contributions; if you have no elections on file, it goes into the plan's default option, or a target date fund matched to your retirement age.
- If you are a former participant with no account, the administrator pays you directly by check. Those checks are valid for 180 days from the date of issue.
Money that cannot be delivered does not go back to Ricoh. No sooner than 14 days after all undeposited checks expire, whatever remains in the settlement fund goes to the plan to defray administrative fees and expenses that would otherwise be charged to participants. The agreement bars using any part of the fund to reimburse a defendant or offset a defendant's costs.
What Proof or Claim Form Is Required?
None. The notice states that you do not need to file a claim, and that you will not be required to produce records showing your plan activity. Your share is determined from the plan's records for your account, supplied by the plan's recordkeeper to the settlement administrator, and the administrator performs the calculation for you.The one thing worth doing is making sure your address is current — and only if you are a former participant, since that is the group paid by mailed check. The notice directs former participants who have not given the plan a current address to contact class counsel through the official settlement website.
What Are the Deadlines?
- Objection deadline: September 21, 2026. A written objection must be received by the Clerk of the Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania by that date, with a copy provided to class counsel and defense counsel. It must refer prominently to the case name and number, and must include your name, address, telephone number, signature, and a full explanation of your reasons. Objecting is also how you tell the court you disagree with the attorneys' fees or the case contribution awards.
- Notice of Intention to Appear: September 21, 2026. Filing a written objection is not enough to speak at the hearing. To be heard you must also file a Notice of Intention to Appear by the same date and serve it on counsel. You may attend without either, but you will not be allowed to speak.
- Independent fiduciary determination: at least 30 days before the fairness hearing. An independent fiduciary retained on the plan's behalf must approve and authorize the settlement in writing under Department of Labor Prohibited Transaction Class Exemption 2003-39.
- Fairness Hearing: October 8, 2026 at 9:30 a.m., in Courtroom 14-B of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. The court may move the hearing, or hold it by telephone or video conference, without further notice to the class, so confirm before traveling.
There is no opt-out deadline, because there is no opt-out. The class was certified under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(1) as a non-opt-out class, and the notice says it is not possible for any class member to exclude themselves. Every class member is bound by the release whether or not they receive money, whether or not they ever got the notice, and whether or not they objected.
What Are You Giving Up?
The release is broad, which is the trade for a class that cannot opt out. On the effective date, class members and the plan release the released parties from all released claims — everything asserted in the two cases, and anything that could have been asserted on the same facts.The notice spells out what that covers: the selection, oversight, monitoring, compensation, fees and performance of the plan's investment options, managed account services and service providers; fees and expenses charged to or paid by the plan; the use of forfeited funds; disclosures about the plan's options and fees; the compensation received by service providers; and alleged breaches of the duties of loyalty, care, prudence and diversification, or prohibited transactions, relating to the plan. In plain terms, a class member cannot later sue over how the plan's investments or fees were handled during the class period.
One carve-out is worth knowing: the release does not reach claims unrelated to this settlement that a class member may have to the value of their own vested account balance under the terms of the plan, as reflected in the plan's records when the settlement becomes final. Your account itself is not what is being released.
What Happens Next?
The next milestone is the Fairness Hearing on October 8, 2026, where the court will decide whether the settlement is fair, reasonable and adequate, whether to approve the Plan of Allocation, and how much to award in attorneys' fees, costs and case contribution awards. It will consider any timely objections.Approval is not payment, and this settlement has more gates than most. The independent fiduciary must authorize it; if that approval does not come and Ricoh does not waive the condition, the agreement terminates and nobody is paid. If the court approves, the order must become Final — 35 calendar days after entry if no one appeals, longer if someone does. The insurer deposited a $100,000 first installment after preliminary approval and pays the remaining $1,650,000 within ten business days of the effective date. Only then does the administrator calculate shares and distribute.
The notice is unusually candid about the timeline: if objections are made or appeals are taken, it says, the process may take a long time to complete, possibly several years. If the agreement is terminated for any of the reasons it lists, the cases revert to separate actions and the money in the fund goes back to the insurer. We will update this page when the court rules or a distribution schedule is announced.
Sources and Verification
- Official settlement website — Ricoh ERISA Settlement.com, including its Home, Frequently Asked Questions, Important Case Documents and Important Dates pages.
- Notice of Class Action Settlement, authorized by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
- Class Action Settlement Agreement executed February 5, 2026, together with its Exhibit A (Long Form Settlement Notice), Exhibit B (Short Form Postcard Notice), Exhibit C (proposed Preliminary Approval Order), Exhibit D (Plan of Allocation), Exhibit E (proposed Final Approval Order) and Exhibit F (CAFA Notice), filed at docket 27-1 in the second action.
- Dockets in Kruchten, et al. v. Ricoh USA, Inc., et al., No. 2:22-cv-00678-JS, and Batten v. Ricoh USA, Inc., et al., No. 2:25-cv-04658-JS (E.D. Pa.), before Judge Juan R. Sanchez.
Questions
Why is there no way to opt out of this settlement?
The settlement class was certified as a non-opt-out class under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(1), and the notice states plainly that it is not possible for any settlement class member to exclude themselves. That rule exists for cases like this one, where the claims belong to the retirement plan as a whole rather than to individuals separately: letting some participants sue on their own would risk inconsistent rulings about how the same plan should have been run. The trade-off is that every class member is bound by the release whether or not they receive any money. Objecting is the only avenue left, and the deadline is September 21, 2026.
I left Ricoh years ago and rolled over my 401(k). Am I still covered?
Yes, if you participated in the plan at any point between February 22, 2016 and March 24, 2026. The class definition turns on participation during the class period, not on whether you still have an account. The notice calls people who no longer have a plan account Former Participants, and they are paid directly by check rather than having money deposited into a plan account. The allocation formula counts your quarterly account balances during the class period, so a balance that was later rolled over still counts for the quarters it existed. Former participants whose calculated share comes to $9.99 or less receive nothing.
What is a forfeiture, and why is it part of this case?
A forfeiture is employer money that a participant loses by leaving before it vests. When someone quits early, the unvested employer contributions in their account go back into a plan-level pool. The dispute is over what that pool may be spent on. The named plaintiffs allege the defendants used forfeitures to offset the employer's own future contributions rather than to pay plan expenses that would otherwise be charged to participants, which they say served the company instead of the participants. The defendants deny it and say their use of forfeitures was reasonable and in accordance with the plan. No court has decided the question.
Could I be in the class and still receive nothing?
Yes, and the Plan of Allocation says so in two places. A current participant whose preliminary entitlement calculates to $0 receives no distribution. A former participant whose share comes to $9.99 or less — the Former Participant De Minimis Amount — also receives nothing, because cutting a check that small costs more than it delivers. After those participants are removed, the administrator recalculates so the remaining shares add up to the full net amount, which slightly raises everyone else's payment. The administrator may also raise or lower the $9.99 threshold if the arithmetic requires it.
Why does the notice warn that payment could take years?
Because several things have to happen in sequence, and one of them is outside the court's control. An independent fiduciary retained on the plan's behalf must review and authorize the settlement under a Department of Labor exemption at least 30 days before the fairness hearing, and if it refuses, the agreement can terminate unless Ricoh waives that condition. Then the court must grant final approval, and the order has to become Final — 35 days after entry if nobody appeals, but longer if someone does. Only then does the insurer fund the remaining $1,650,000, and only then can the administrator calculate and distribute shares. The notice warns that objections or appeals could stretch that out, possibly for several years.
