Just this month, the Ninth Circuit revisited the relationship between ERISA and Article III constitutional standing, recently addressed by the U.S. Supreme Court in Thole v. U.S. Bank, 140 S. Ct. 1615. In Winsor v....more
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) is now allowing multiemployer pension plans that are applying for special financial assistance (SFA) to request relief from the standard withdrawal liability calculation...more
Presented below is our summary of significant Internal Revenue Service (IRS) guidance and relevant tax matters for the week of December 27, 2021 – December 31, 2021... December 27, 2021: The IRS published a news release...more
Betriebliche Altersversorgung ist auch eine Absicherung gegen Invalidität. In zwei Urteilen vom 13. Juli 2021 hat das BAG den Versorgungsfall "Invalidität" konkretisiert. In diesem Sinn kann eine dauernde Erwerbsunfähigkeit...more
What better way to mark Veterans Day than to learn how you can assist a veteran in need? Please join us for The Veterans Consortium (TVC) Pro Bono Program’s Volunteer Attorney Training on Thursday, November 11 from 11 a.m....more
The fiduciary standards of ERISA apply to all employee benefit plans that are subject to Title I of ERISA. The duty of loyalty, the duty of prudence, and the duty to administer a plan in accordance with its written terms...more
I – Overview of the Butch Lewis Emergency Pension Plan Relief Act- The much-heralded Butch Lewis Emergency Pension Plan Relief Act of 2021 (the “Butch Lewis Act of 2021”) is closer to becoming a reality as part of the...more
We have heard about the data. In 2015, the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics published a study indicating that the average worker could expect to hold 12 jobs during his/her career. More recently, another study...more
The Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act included several provisions related to lifetime income strategies under retirement plans, including a requirement that pension benefit statements for...more
In the News. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued a notice of proposed rulemaking to create a new category of “seasoned” qualified mortgages; the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) Office of...more
The IRS deadline to file for a determination letter for an individually designed statutory hybrid plan is August 31, 2020. Statutory hybrid plans include cash balance plans, pension equity plans and certain other variable...more
The element that perhaps most significantly impacts the amount of an employer’s withdrawal liability – or indeed whether an employer even has withdrawal liability at all – is the actuarial method and interest rate used to...more
The Department of Labor (DOL) has finally issued final regulations providing a new “notice and access” safe harbor for retirement plans to furnish required disclosures by email or other electronic ways to plan participants...more
On April 16th, the Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”) received the Department of Labor’s (“DOL”) long anticipated final regulation updating and modernizing the rules for using electronic media to furnish ERISA-required...more
West Virginia had exempted from taxation the state retirement benefits paid to certain state law enforcement retirees while not exempting similarly situated federal law enforcement retirees. The United States Supreme...more
The Department of Veteran's Affairs (the "VA") has issued new regulations affecting eligibility for its Improved Pension benefit, better known as "Housebound" or "Aid and Attendance" benefits. The new regulations give bright...more
On June 12, 2018, the Court of Appeals granted relief to municipalities such as the City of New York that exempt its uniformed service members from the Workers Compensation system. In Andino v. Mills, 2018 Slip Op 04273, the...more
• In Laborers' Pension Fund v. Miscevic, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that the Illinois slayer statute is one state statute that is not pre-empted by ERISA. A slayer statute is a law that prevents an...more
In the world of ERISA litigation, one of the safest bets is usually that, if an employer establishes something that it calls a “plan,” and the plan allows a significant number of its employees to obtain money after...more
In the wake of massive floods caused by Hurricane Harvey, the Department of Labor (DOL), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) have issued initial employee benefit plan guidance. The...more
On May 19, 2017, the Ontario government announced that it is implementing a new funding framework for defined benefit pension plans, which includes: Requiring funding on a solvency basis in the event that a plan’s funded...more
On June 20, 2016, the federal Minister of Finance Bill Morneau, together with eight of the 10 provincial finance ministers, agreed in principle to expand the Canada Pension Plan (CPP). All provinces except Quebec and Manitoba...more
With President Obama’s recent nomination of Judge Merrick B. Garland of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to the U.S. Supreme Court, we thought our loyal readers would be interested to learn a little about Judge...more