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Every so often an employer sponsoring an ERISA employee benefit plan will receive a written request from a participant or beneficiary (or their legal counsel) to provide plan related documents. Sometimes the request asks for specific documents and sometimes the request is broader, asking for all instruments under which the plan is established or operated, …
Continue reading “Pay Attention to Requests for ERISA Plan Documents or Risk the Con$equence$”
Employers that completely or partially withdraw from underfunded multiemployer pension funds are well aware that they may owe the fund withdrawal liability—an assessment against the employer of its allocable share of the fund’s underfunding, provided under ERISA. Imagine an employer that finds out its withdrawal liability is reduced to zero under the “de minimis reduction,” …
Most employers are familiar by now of the many lawsuits (more than 100) filed against 401(k) and 403(b) plan sponsors and their employee fiduciaries responsible for selecting the plans’ record keepers and investment line-ups, alleging that they breached their fiduciary duty by allowing participants to pay excessive record keeping fees and invest in underperforming and …
In a typical asset sale transaction, the purchaser takes great care to disclaim any responsibility for the seller’s business debts. When the seller is a sponsor of a defined benefit pension plan, this typically includes a disclaimer for any pension liability (e.g., unpaid plan contributions, PBGC premiums, and liability upon plan termination). The purchaser will …
Employers that participate in multiemployer fringe benefit plans (i.e., a plan providing benefits for union employees into which more than one employer contributes) typically understand the basic costs of doing so.
As employers who sponsor 401(k) and 403(b) retirement plans prepare their 2017 year-end and 2018 “to do” lists, they should be sure to include a review of their processes for selecting and monitoring the investment funds they make available for plan participant investment and the fees their plans pay to record keepers and other service …
Continue reading “Minimizing the Risk of Costly 401(k) and 403(b) Investment Fund and Fee Lawsuits”