Can Investment Management Be Overpriced?

If investment managers give exactly the same advice to a number of clients, can they charge some clients a higher percentage fee than they charge to other clients?

That's the question, more or less, in the case of Jones v. Harris Associates. As investment managers – aka "advisers" – to certain mutual funds, Harris charged individual investors a higher percentage than it charged institutions such as pension funds.

Did Harris have a fiduciary duty to treat individual investors fairly? A federal appeals court didn't think so. Now the Supreme Court will explore the question.