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Your 401(k) isn’t free, but most employees — and even some employers — have no idea how much they’re paying for the popular retirement plan.

Fortunately, a series of lawsuits has put a spotlight on excessive fees within 401(k) accounts, and the U.S. Labor Department is moving ahead with long-delayed regulations on fee disclosure.

The result won’t be apparent on your next quarterly statement, but at least corporate benefits departments and small-business owners should have the information they need to make more intelligent choices.

They also have some stark examples of what can happen if they don’t make the right choices. General Dynamics and a Clayton-based money manager, Fiduciary Asset Management, recently agreed to pay $15.15 million to settle a class-action suit over fees within General Dynamics’ 401(k) plan.

Jerome Schlichter, the St. Louis attorney who filed the General Dynamics suit, has a $16.5 million settlement pending in a similar suit against Caterpillar.

He also won an important case last month against Edison International, a California utility. The judge hasn’t yet set an amount of damages, but he has ruled that Edison should have negotiated lower fees for its employees.

The principle is simple, Schlichter says:

The court said there was no reason the employees should not have been offered institutional rates. A billion-dollar plan is not in the same market as a $500 investor.

Schlichter has lost a few cases, including a suit against John Deere and Fidelity that he appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

He continues to fight more than a dozen others, and he believes that workers across the country are already reaping the benefits.

More and more fiduciaries and plan sponsors are looking more carefully at expenses in these plans, and also at hidden fees and conflicts of interest in these plans, Schlichter says.

The Labor Department’s proposed rules should help employers make that evaluation. They require disclosure of direct or indirect compensation that a 401(k) plan pays to advisers, brokers, record-keepers and others.

Those fees often get paid through revenue-sharing arrangements that don’t have to be disclosed under current law.

For example, a business owner might turn to a broker for advice on where to place his company’s 401(k). The broker might collect fees from the mutual fund company he recommends. The business owner would be in the dark, even though he might be paying more than necessary for the mutual funds.

Robert Higgins, a senior consultant with Benefit Plans Plus in Creve Coeur, thinks the new rules may cause a shake-up in the industry.

This is going to disrupt some folks’ revenue stream, he said.

Many employers are going to be quite surprised at the amount they’re paying, Higgins added. They think they have been looking at full disclosure before, and they really haven’t.

Higgins says his firm, which provides administrative services for 401(k) plans, insists on fully disclosing its fee arrangements. He knows, however, that other firms don’t.

Some business owners tell Higgins that they’re getting their 401(k) plans for free. When I hear that, I just smile, he says.

The employees of those companies probably are overpaying for their investments. High fees will cut into their nest eggs, and some workers may eventually wise up and sue their employer.

The law has always said that a 401(k) must be run for the benefit of employees and no one else. With help from regulators and a few aggressive lawyers, workers are finally getting the protection they deserve.