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ERISA
An increasing number of retirement plan participants are victims of cyber breaches. And this, argues a recent blog entry, puts more than participants at risk—it also puts plan sponsors at risk of fiduciary liability.
“Cybersecurity and Retirement Plans: What Plan Sponsors Should Do,” a recent...
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Most plans have had to deal with situations in which a participant has died with benefits in a qualified plan. A recent ASPPA webcast discussed those situations, as well as others, and ways to handle them.
In “Best Practices on Handling Beneficiary Designations,” Robert M. Richter, J.D., LL.M...
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Law and regulation require that certain information is provided to plan participants. But those requirements have not necessarily kept pace with technological and social advances. The Labor Department is now addressing electronic means of disclosure, and an ASPPA webcast discussed some of the...
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Assistant Secretary of Labor Preston Rutledge is planning to leave his post at the end of May.
Rutledge was nominated to the post in October 2017 by President Trump. He was confirmed by voice vote of the Senate later that same year.
His tenure included a number of significant regulatory advances...
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An ERISA preemption challenge to the CalSavers Retirement Savings Program is gearing up for another go at it.
The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association has filed a notice in Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Ass’n. v. Calif. Secure Choice Ret. Sav. Program, E.D. Cal., No. 2:18-cv-01584, notice of appeal 4/...
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A March 25 ASPPA webcast took a close look at the mechanics of IRS and Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) audits of pension plans, and how to prepare for them.
Clint Blankenship, President of McCloud & Associates, Inc. and Meredith Sesser of Sesser Law offered their insights on IRS...
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On March 31, the American Retirement Association (ARA) provided an expert discussion of the key elements in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act in a special webcast.
The ARA’s Retirement Education Counsel Robert Richter, Director of Technical Education Bob Kaplan and...
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President Trump on March 27 signed into law the sweeping $2.2 trillion stimulus bill that includes retirement relief provisions supported by the American Retirement Association.
It wasn’t easy—or at least not as easy as it might have been—but the signing of the Coronavirus, Aid, Relief and...
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If you’ve been wondering about the potential impact of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent “actual knowledge” decision, wonder no more.
That Intel ruling, handed down in a unanimous ruling in February, held that you don’t need more than a dictionary to know the meaning of “actual knowledge” when it...
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The DOL’s Advisory Council on Employee Welfare and Pension Benefit Plans has released a report addressing transfers of uncashed distribution checks that ERISA plans issue to state unclaimed property programs.
In “Voluntary Transfers of Uncashed Checks from ERISA Plans to State Unclaimed...
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California’s auto-IRA program for private sector workers has prevailed against claims that it runs afoul of ERISA’s preemption.
The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California in 2018 by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, Jonathan Coupal and Debra Desrosiers...
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There are few things more annoying in my daily existence than those ubiquitous pop-up service agreement acknowledgements.
I say annoying because they are inevitably long and “lawyerly”; there’s no way that they can readily be read (much less absorbed) in the medium in which they are presented;...
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Sometimes what you don’t know is as important as what you know, and a Feb. 5 ASPPA webcast addressed how that principle applies to cybersecurity.
In “Cybersecurity: What You Don’t Know — and Do — Will Hurt You,” Bruce L. Ashton, APM, a Partner at Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP, offered a...
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Think the last multibillion-dollar 401(k) plan had been sued? Guess again.
The latest to find itself served with a suit is health technology firm Cerner Corp., whose $2 billion plan has been accused of the assortment of fiduciary miscues typical of this case genre.
Specifically, four...
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The Social Security Administration has announced that it has updated the ERISA Form 8955-SSA 2-D barcode standards for 2020 use.
The 2D barcode is intended to represent the information on the paper form. Barcodes for this form are generated from two sources:
The IRS Form 8955-SSA Fillable...
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Those who had hoped for some clarity – or perhaps a shift – in the standards involving where, and how, to draw the line between the obligations of corporate officials and ERISA plan fiduciaries – will have to wait a little longer.
It’s an issue that the U.S. Supreme Court had taken on when agreed...
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One of the first universities to find itself targeted in a 403(b) excessive fee suit has asked the nation’s highest court to resolve the threshold for getting to trial.
The suit was not only one of the first of the university 403(b) excessive fee suits to be filed (and yes, by the firm of...
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The Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA), the IRS and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation have released advance copies of the 2019 Form 5500 and the Form 5500-SF, as well as their schedules. They will be used for reporting information pertaining to the 2019...
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The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) has proposed modifications to the Form 5500 and also to its Schedule R (Retirement Plan Information) for reporting about the 2020 plan year.
Form 5500
The PBGC is proposing minor modifications to the Form 5500 Series to improve the accuracy of...
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Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia will be able to participate in drafting the department's new fiduciary rule, the Wall Street Journal reported Oct. 29.
While he was a partner at the Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher law firm, Scalia served as counsel for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce appellants in ...
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