John Hancock Life Insurance Co. clients urged an Eleventh Circuit panel on Thursday to reverse a lower court's ruling that the company didn't breach a fiduciary duty when $100 million worth of foreign tax credits wasn't passed through to them, saying the transaction diminished the value of their retirement accounts. Jaime Santos, argued that Hancock, her client, isn't considered a fiduciary to the retirement plan as a general rule, saying the company is a "service provider" to the plan and required to negotiate against itself when striking deals with the plan's actual fiduciaries Santos mentioned to Law360 "that ERISA put in between plan participants and the market as a whole”. John Hancock is represented by Appellate & Supreme Court Litigation partner Jaime Santos and associate Jordan Bock, and ERISA Litigation partner James Fleckner of Goodwin.