That&#x27;s the crux of the issue. Vanguard Group presents itself as offering it&#x27;s services at cost, when in fact it&#x27;s a for-profit company. As a for-profit company, according the laws that stand today and if you believe the claims of the plaintiff, it <i>has</i> to offer it&#x27;s services at a competitive market rate.<p>Of course, that doesn&#x27;t mean it can&#x27;t rebate the profit back to the funds which could then apply it as a fee rebate. That should be totally legal, as long as it pays taxes on the profit before it issues the rebate.<p>This whole territory has been explored before, by the way. Mutual insurance companies used to have this same problem, and eventually Congress just added another carveout to 501(c) and made the problem go away. That&#x27;s the other alternative here, and it&#x27;s definitely cleaner and probably better for society as a whole.