#WorkforceWednesday®: New DOL Guidance - ERISA Plan Cybersecurity Update - Employment Law This Week®
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - ERISA Forfeiture Litigation
ERISA Blog | Changes to the HIPAA Privacy Rules A Primer for Self-Insured Group Health Plans
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - What the J&J Case Means for Plan Administrators
The No Surprises Act: A Cost Saving Opportunity for Employer Plan Sponsors
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - New Federal Rule Aims to Hold Investment Advisors to a Higher Standard
Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation: Getting Ready for 2024 – Top-Hat Plans — Special Edition Podcast
Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation: Getting Ready for 2024 - Health and Welfare Plan Developments — Special Edition Podcast
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Partial Plan Terminations
Podcast Episode 189: Adding Context to Compliance and Color To Your Legal Practice
#WorkforceWednesday: SECURE Act 2.0 - What 401(k) Plan Sponsors Need to Know - Employment Law This Week®
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Plan Administrators’ 2022 Year-End Checklist
An Inside Look as a Juror - FCRA Focus Podcast
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Multiemployer Plans
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Court Decisions Impacting Plan Sponsors and Fiduciaries
(A)ESOP's Fables - The Income and Estate Tax-Free ESOP
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - What Constitutes Plan Assets Under ERISA?
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Group Health Plan Service Provider Compensation Disclosure Requirements
Update and Discussion on Legal and Practical Issues
Welcome to 'Just Compensation'
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) insures most private sector (i.e., non-governmental) defined benefit pension plans. The Plan Administrator of each pension plan covered under ERISA is required to annually file...more
In a defined benefit plan, participants usually accrue a monthly benefit based on a formula that typically considers their last three years’ salary before retirement and years of service with their employer. For example, the...more
As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), it is important to reflect on the impact this legislation has had on private sector employee benefit plans such as...more
From the 2010 outset of its project to extend ERISA fiduciary status broadly to financial intermediaries, including insurance agents, the US Department of Labor (DOL) has consistently relied on the evolution of the private...more
The June Monthly Minute highlights recent DOL guidance on annuity provider selection for defined benefit plans and IRS Q&As that provide details on SECURE 2.0’s optional emergency and domestic abuse victim distributions for...more
On this episode of Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion, host Brydon DeWitt discusses a recent ERISA class action case, Lewandowski v. Johnson & Johnson et al., that is a wake-up call for plan fiduciaries managing health and...more
They say that you shouldn’t sweat the small stuff. As a kid from Brooklyn, I do sweat the small stuff. When they say that you shouldn’t sweat the small stuff, they mean that you should not focus your energy on things that...more
In Thole v. U.S. Bank, N.A., 140 S Ct. 1615 (2020), the Supreme Court, in a five to four decision authored by Justice Kavanaugh, held that participants in an ERISA defined benefit pension plan did not have standing under...more
Acknowledging uncommon market conditions, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) announced Technical Update Number 23-1 (the Update), which provides a one-time waiver of certain reporting requirements for some...more
The Department of Labor (DOL) announced that it has finalized, together with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation (PBGC), the third and final round of revisions to the Form 5500 Annual...more
The SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 (SECURE 2.0) provides welcome relief to private sector single employer sponsors of defined benefit pension plans (Pension Plan(s)). Effective for plan years beginning on and after January 1, 2024,...more
As part of our ongoing series on SECURE 2.0, this post discusses three significant changes to corrections of common retirement plan errors: (1) New rules for correcting overpayments, (2) expansion of the Self-Correction...more
Following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Hughes v. Northwestern University, courts around the country continue to articulate the pleading requirements for a breach of duty of prudence claim under the Employee Retirement...more
Current volatile market conditions and increasing interest rates are causing defined-benefit plan administrators and sponsors to consider purchasing annuity contracts (often called “terminal funding annuities”) to fund...more
On Friday, July 8, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued its decision in United Mine Workers of America 1974 Pension Plan v. Energy West Mining Company, joining the Sixth Circuit in holding that the...more
On July 7, 2022, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), the independent federal corporation that insures private-sector defined benefit plans under Title IV of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974...more
The closure of the Studebaker-Packard Corporation car manufacturing plant in 1963 was a major catalyst leading into the enactment of the Employee Retirement Income Savings Act of 1974 (“ERISA.”) ...more
Many traditional defined benefit plans, such as final average pay plans, offer a lump sum distribution as an optional form of benefit. The amount of the lump sum distribution is sensitive to the applicable interest rate...more
The U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts has dismissed an Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) class action lawsuit challenging a retirement plan's use of an outdated mortality table in calculating...more
The Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Act (the “SECURE Act”), passed at the end of 2019, adds a participant disclosure requirement that addresses a long-held concern of lawmakers that many participants are not...more
This week the Court addresses the constitutionality of Oakland’s Uniform Residential Tenant Relocation Ordinance’s “relocation fee,” and the proper method for calculating an employer’s “withdrawal liability” under ERISA. ...more
A qualified domestic relations order (“QDRO”) is a state domestic relations order that assigns to an alternate payee (such as a former spouse or a child) the right to receive all or a portion of benefits payable to a plan...more
The principles governing how ERISA plans determine a participant’s beneficiary haven’t changed much since the country singer George Strait sang “Write this down” in 1999. In short, the participant has to write it down … on...more
The Internal Revenue Service recently announced its cost-of-living adjustments applicable to dollar limitations on benefits and contributions for retirement plans generally effective for Tax Year 2022 (see IRS Notice...more
After 23 years in the retirement plan business, one thing that stands out is that plan providers are on the cutting edge are usually over the edge....more