BREAKING: Kvek v. Cushman & Wakefield

Employers have a legal duty to ensure that the retirement fund options they offer to their workers are properly vetted for all major financial risks. The complaint alleges that Cushman & Wakefield breached that duty by offering employees the Westwood Quality SmallCap Fund. The fund explicitly disclaims any climate risk analysis in its methodology, has consistently underperformed its benchmark, lagging by 17% in 2025 — and charges higher fees than comparable options. Despite these warning signs, the company continued to offer it to workers.

The court has the power to order Cushman & Wakefield to reimburse the retirement plan for losses caused by its failure to adequately monitor these risks. The court can also order the firm to fix its process going forward, requiring it to actively stress-test funds for climate risk. Crucially, a ruling like this would send a signal to employers across the US. It would establish a legal precedent that ignoring climate risk is a liability. This could force the 401(k) industry to stop offering climate risky funds and start building investment options that take the compounding nature of climate risk seriously for all workers, not just those at Cushman & Wakefield.

The plaintiff is a former Cushman & Wakefield employee who participated in the company’s 401(k) plan and invested retirement savings in the Westwood Quality SmallCap Fund. Like thousands of colleagues, she trusted the company to offer retirement options that had been properly vetted for financial risk. This lawsuit seeks to hold her former employer accountable for its betrayal of that trust.

Cushman & Wakefield has publicly acknowledged that climate change poses a material financial risk to its own business operations and has taken steps to protect its balance sheet accordingly. It even positions itself as an expert in climate risk, offering advice and how-to guides to clients on how to manage it. Yet the company failed to apply that same risk analysis to its employees’ retirement savings. This case asks a simple question: if climate-related financial risk is serious enough to manage for the company, why wasn’t it serious enough to manage for the workers? That the company saw climate risk as an opportunity to sell climate resilience advisory services to its clients makes the failure to protect workers from the same risks all the more egregious.

As of December 31, 2025, the company’s 401(k) plan covers approximately 23,448 employees, with $1.7 billion in assets under management.

Climate risk is the financial risk created by the real-world impacts of climate change. That includes stronger storms, rising temperatures, floods and wildfires. It also includes changing insurance markets, new regulations, supply-chain disruptions, and the damage and downtime when extreme weather destroys buildings, equipment, and infrastructure.

The Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) is a U.S. law that sets basic rules for how workplace retirement and health benefit plans must be run, with the core goal of protecting workers’ money. It requires employers and the companies that manage long-term savings vehicles like 401(k)s to act in employees’ best financial interests, to manage plans prudently, to avoid conflicts of interest, and to clearly disclose fees and risks. If plan administrators violate these duties, ERISA gives workers the right to sue to recover losses and hold those decision-makers accountable.

The plaintiff is represented by ClientEarth USA and Cohen Milstein, a plaintiffs’ law firm.

This case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in Seattle.

Stand.earth is an international climate advocacy group, and is supportive of this lawsuit as it aligns with our mission to mobilize workers’ collective power for a climate-safe economy. We are not a participant in the lawsuit, but commend its filing as a motivator for increased accountability and action across all forms of retirement funds.

Stand.earth manages the Climate Safe Pensions Network, including the Climate Safe Retirement Fund campaign, that advocates for workers to have increased access to climate-safe options in their retirement funds.

With a quarter century of experience running corporate campaigns that have moved entire industries toward more environmentally responsible practices, Stand works to educate and activate public and private sector workers about risks to their pensions and retirement funds, and to accelerate investments that advance a clean-energy future.