Over the past few years, qualified retirement plans, including employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) have been adding provisions requiring participant breach of fiduciary duty claims to be resolved through mandatory arbitration on an individual basis rather than through the courts or on a class basis. One reason for doing so is to prevent plaintiffs from bringing spurious lawsuits that contain sufficient facts to survive a motion to dismiss, which would lead to expensive discovery exercises. The risk of such expense could create an incentive for ESOP fiduciaries to agree to substantial settlements to avoid the cost of further litigation regardless of the underlying merits of the allegations. However, there are downsides to having such mandatory arbitration provisions, including the risk of facing a non-appealable adverse arbitration decision and its impact on the ESOP, the ESOP sponsor and the ESOP fiduciaries. While courts have generally held that such provisions are not per se invalid, a number of courts, including the Southern District of Illinois, have limited their scope.