PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - ERISA Forfeiture Litigation
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Understanding Lifetime Income Products
Coronavirus-Related Retirement Plan Distributions, MPPPs, and Governmental 401(a) Plans
CARES Act – Retirement Plan Distributions and Loans: Troutman Sanders and Pepper Hamilton COVID-19 Issues for Employers Podcast Series
The SECURE Act: Significant Changes for Retirement Plans and IRAs
The Secure Act | How secure are you in your estate plan?
Podcast: Supreme Court May Resolve Key ERISA Statute of Limitations and Proprietary Fund Litigation Questions
The Corporate Law Report: First-to-File Patents, Hiring for Cultural Fit, Roth Conversions Post-Fiscal Cliff, and Global Corporate Insights
Many who work with defined contribution plan administrators and consult plan sponsors on their ERISA fiduciary duties have been carefully monitoring Disberry v. Employee Relations Committee of the Colgate-Palmolive Company...more
A federal district court recently granted a motion to dismiss claims that defined contribution plan fiduciaries breached their fiduciary duties of loyalty and prudence, and violated ERISA’s anti-inurement and prohibited...more
Participating in DC plans such as 401(k), 457, and 403(b) plans is the primary way most people save for retirement, and there is considerable sponsor and participant interest in making DC plans more effective at their primary...more
On December 20, 2023, the IRS issued Notice 2024-2, which provides question-and-answer guidance on various aspects of the SECURE 2.0 Act. This post focuses on the “de minimis financial incentives” under SECURE 2.0 Act Section...more
This post summarizes provisions of SECURE 2.0 that retirement plans may need or want to implement for 2024. While no amendments are required for plans heading into 2024, plan operations may see some updates, especially if the...more
In a 2010 newsletter, the IRS announced that forfeitures under a 401(k) plan or other defined contribution plan must be promptly used and not allowed to accumulate over several years. In February, the IRS proposed...more
David Letterman once had a joke about those USA Today graphs where he claimed they had a graph that said that “3 out of 4 Americans make up 75% of the population.”...more
The Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act of 2019 (“SECURE Act”) amended ERISA to require ERISA-covered 401(k) and other defined contribution plans to provide two estimated lifetime income (annuity)...more
As 2022 begins, retirement plan sponsors and service providers should keep in mind deadlines for required plan changes in 2022. In particular, retirement plan changes under the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement...more
Key Points - 401(k) plan fiduciaries have the duty to monitor reasonableness of fees for all investment options available to participants under a 401(k) plan. Offering low-fee investment options does not alleviate the...more
With so many fee litigation cases over the last few years, I was concerned that the Federal court was getting sick of cases where plaintiff’s attorney just merely pleaded that the costs of the plan were too much and. it was a...more
With summer winding down, there may be no better time for sponsors of individually designed qualified retirement plans to begin thinking about year-end requirements and preparing for changes in the new year. Thankfully,...more
Plan sponsors of defined contribution plans such as 401(k) plans will soon have to provide participants with illustrations of just how much a participant’s account balance might produce on a monthly basis if converted to a...more
Welcome to Goodwin’s ERISA Litigation Update. Litigation involving ERISA-governed benefits plans has exploded in recent years. Lawyers in our award-winning ERISA Litigation practice have extensive experience litigating these...more
The Government Accountability Office recently urged the U.S. Department of Labor to release guidance on cybersecurity matters in an effort to mitigate risks to 401(k) and other retirement plans. The GAO noted that there were...more
With SECURE Act 1.0 (officially titled “Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act”) still being implemented by many plan sponsors, Congress is now considering a new package of laws designed to help close the...more
Employers using pre-approved plan documents for their defined contribution retirement plans, such as 401(k) plans, should carefully review restated adoption agreements and basic plan documents that may be issued by their...more
In terms of the 401(k) plan business, I think the hype over pooled employer plans (PEP) will be the most over hype since the release of Crystal Pepsi....more
The IRS has recently issued to document vendors opinion letter approvals for updated pre-approved defined contribution plan documents. This starts the next cycle of required defined contribution plan document restatements. If...more
If you become big enough, you can get sued. That is the lesson I tell everyone when someone mentions to me when a large plan provider or a large plan gets sued. Jerry Schlicter’s law firms has targeted the Pentegra Defined...more
When people ask my wife what I do for a living, she says she doesn’t know. Half the time I think she’s joking and half the time I think she’s serious that she doesn’t know what an ERISA attorney does. The same thing goes with...more
As 2020 comes to an end, we are happy to present our traditional End of Year Plan Sponsor “To Do” Lists. We are publishing our “To Do” Lists in four separate Employee Benefits Updates. Part 1 covered year-end health and...more
The Department of Labor (DOL) released regulations that require retirement plan sponsors to attach on participants’ account statements an estimate of how much monthly income their accrued account balance would produce when...more
The U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) on August 18, 2020, issued an interim final regulation (the “Regulation”) requiring the inclusion of lifetime income illustrations in the benefit statements provided to participants in...more