On February 15, 2023, changes to Actuarial Standard of Practice (ASOP) No. 4 will be effective, and defined benefit plans will need to comply with these new rules in all actuarial funding valuations with measurement dates...more
On March 4, 2022, the District Court for the District of Massachusetts dismissed, pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 56, ERISA claims brought by a former employee who retired early at the age of 62 and receives retirement benefits...more
In Sofco Erectors, Inc. v. Trustees of the Ohio Operating Engineers Pension Fund (“Sofco”) (September, 28, 2021), the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a long awaited decision regarding the appropriateness of interest...more
In a rare victory for employers that participate in multiemployer pension plans, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the interest rate memorialized in the Segal Blend actuarial assumption was inappropriate to use in...more
The District Court of Minnesota declined to certify a class of pensioners seeking to challenge their plan’s early retirement calculations. ERISA requires early retirement benefits to be actuarially equivalent to what...more
In recent years, employers have increasingly brought challenges claiming that it is unreasonable for a multi-employer pension plan’s actuary to calculate withdrawal liability using a rate that is lower than the plan’s...more
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas dealt a major blow to the putative class action Torres v. American Airlines, Inc., finding that the four named plaintiffs are not adequate class representatives for...more
In an opinion issued in Smith v. Rockwell Automation, Inc., et al., No. 19-C-0505 (E.D. Wis.) on Feb. 10, 2020, U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman denied Rockwell Automation's motion to dismiss a putative class action complaint...more
Eleven cases have been filed against defined benefit pension plan sponsors and certain fiduciaries alleging that the plan’s assumptions—called “actuarial equivalence factors” or “actuarial equivalence assumptions”— for...more
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals recently issued a withdrawal liability decision of which both multiemployer pension plans and their contributing employers should be aware. Specifically, in National Retirement Fund v. Metz...more
A federal district court recently handed plan sponsors their first victory in a string of actuarial equivalence lawsuits filed against large defined benefit pension plans. Although the decision is a positive development for...more