On Thursday, Dealbreaker reported that a former employee had sued JPMorgan, accusing the bank of ripping off 401(k) participants by investing their retirement assets in pricey in-house funds when cheaper alternatives were available. According to the suit, the 401(k) plan started pulling out of in-house mutual funds in late 2015 when the bank came under scrutiny from the SEC over conflicts of interest in its asset management business.

The bank hasn’t clarified whether the SEC probe was the catalyst for the shift or if the 401(k) administrators had some other reason from abandoning their own bank’s products en masse in 2015. Regardless, public filings make clear that 2 JPMorgan mutual funds - Mid-Cap Growth and Small Cap Core - suffered a combined $1.2 billion in redemptions from the 401(k) in 2015.

• The big blow was to the JPMorgan Small Cap Core Fund, which lost 75% of its assets under management after the 401(k) yanked its funds, dropping from to $197 million from $816 million between mid-2015 and 1/1/16.

• It could be that JPMorgan’s in-house 401(k) administrators really thought the fund, managed by Phillip Hart and Dennis Ruhl, was a prudent place to park nearly $600 million in retirement assets – at least up until sometime in late 2015. The fund wasn’t so bad. Even after fees of 83bp, it outperformed Morningstar’ small-cap benchmark over 5- and 10-year timeframes.

The bank contests the lawsuit’s allegations. The plaintiff, Illinois resident Terre Beach, was terminated in January 2015, according to BrokerCheck.