The Iowa Association of Business and Industry deprived its member companies of more than $41.9 million in potential investment income after it divested stock it received during the demutualization of Principal Mutual Life Insurance Co., a Polk County jury ruled today.

However, it is not clear exactly how the judgment should be distributed or to whom, said David Charles, who represented EFCO Corp., a Des Moines manufacturer that filed the lawsuit against ABI in January 2006 on behalf of itself and other ABI members.

Michael Ralston, ABI president, said he was surprised by the award but not the verdict. He also anticipated that the verdict would be appealed.

At issue was ABI’s sale of 870,393 shares of stock it received after Principal

became a publicly-traded company in 2001. ABI received about $26 million in stock and other investments.

The jury award represents the value of the stock if it had been held and not divested by ABI.

EFCO claimed that ABI members were entitled to the stock because it represented the value of the nonprofit organization’s group life insurance plan, which had been administered since 1946 by Principal and its predecessor, Bankers Life Co. The class was to include current and former ABI members who participated in the life insurance plan.

Charles said the distribution of the funds would not be determined until various subsets of the class have been identified.

The U.S. Department of Labor also filed a lawsuit against ABI, claiming the organization should have distributed proceeds from the stock sale among its member companies and their workers. That lawsuit is pending in U.S. District Court.