Cite as: 530 U. S. 238 (2000)
Opinion of the Court
discretion over a portion of the plan's assets, and hence a fiduciary of APT, see § 3(21)(A)(i), 29 U. S. C. § 1002(21)(A)(i).
This litigation arose when APT's fiduciaries—its trustee, petitioner Harris Trust and Savings Bank, and its administrator, petitioner Ameritech Corporation—discovered that the motel interests were nearly worthless. Petitioners maintain that the interests had been worthless all along; Salomon asserts, to the contrary, that the interests declined in value due to a downturn in the motel industry. Whatever the true cause, petitioners sued Salomon in 1992 under § 502(a)(3), which authorizes a "participant, beneficiary, or fiduciary" to bring a civil action "to enjoin any act or practice which violates any provision of [ERISA Title I] . . . or . . . to obtain other appropriate equitable relief . . . to redress such violations." 29 U. S. C. § 1132(a)(3).
Petitioners claimed, among other things, that NISA, as plan fiduciary, had caused the plan to engage in a per se prohibited transaction under § 406(a) in purchasing the motel interests from Salomon, and that Salomon was liable on account of its participation in the transaction as a nonfiduciary party in interest. Specifically, petitioners pointed to § 406(a)(1)(A), 29 U. S. C. § 1106(a)(1)(A), which prohibits a "sale or exchange . . . of any property between the plan and a party in interest," and § 406(a)(1)(D), 29 U. S. C. § 1106(a)(1)(D), which prohibits a "transfer to . . . a party in interest . . . of any assets of the plan." Petitioners sought rescission of the transaction, restitution from Salomon of the purchase price with interest, and disgorgement of Salomon's profits made from use of the plan assets transferred to it. App. 41.
Salomon moved for summary judgment, arguing that § 502(a)(3), when used to remedy a transaction prohibited by § 406(a), authorizes a suit only against the party expressly constrained by § 406(a)—the fiduciary who caused the plan to enter the transaction—and not against the counterparty to the transaction. See § 406(a)(1), 29 U. S. C. § 1106(a)(1) ("A
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