Plaintiff, the Secretary of Labor for the U.S. Department of Labor, filed this action under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, or ERISA, against Belanger and Co., Inc., the company president and company vice president. The lawsuit asserted violations of defendants' fiduciary duties in administering and managing eight employee benefit plans. Defendants allegedly exercised control and authority over the management and disposition of the plans' assets. Plaintiff sought equitable relief in the form of a court order requiring defendants to restore certain losses caused by alleged fiduciary breaches, defendants' removal as fiduciaries of any employee benefit plan and a permanent injunction enjoining them from acting in any fiduciary capacity with respect to employee benefit plans subject to ERISA. Defendants filed a partial motion to dismiss, asserting that the allegations of plaintiff's complaint demonstrated that several of the claims were barred by ERISA's six-year statute of limitations. The dispute at bar essentially turned on whether a transfer made in 2011 was a self-contained alleged breach of a fiduciary duty or whether it was an extension of an alleged fiduciary breach already completed two years prior, the federal court explained. Defendants argued that the statute of limitations was triggered in 2009, when the company and its president transferred some portion of the plan's assets to a new plan administrator, leaving about $30,000 in the plan account. The 2011 transfer was a mere continuation of alleged prohibited transaction that occurred outside the limitations period, according to defendants. They relied on Ranke v. Sanofi-Synthelabo Inc., 436 F.3d 197 (3d Cir. 2006). Meanwhile, plaintiff maintained that the 2011 transfer of money from the plan's account was a separate act from the alleged failure to fully transfer the plan's assets to a new plan administrator. Defendants' 2011 transfer of leftover plan assets to the company's corporate bank account by itself constituted a prohibited transaction under § 406 of ERISA, according to the suit. Plaintiff argued that the 2011 transfer of plan assets to the company's corporate bank account was a classic example of self-dealing prohibited by § 406(b)(1). The court rejected defendants' argument, as they could not explain why the 2011 transfer could not be treated as its own prohibited transaction for purposes of ERISA. Moreover, the case they relied upon, Ranke, did not involve a prohibited transaction analogous to the alleged transfer of funds to a corporate account. The court reasoned that plaintiff's ERISA claim was tethered to conduct occurring inside the limitations period only. Plaintiff disclaimed any reliance on any earlier wrongdoing that might violate other provisions. Viewed in a light most favorable to plaintiff, the claims at issue were not barred by the statute of limitations, the court concluded. Thus, it denied defendants' motion.