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I never bought into it, but no one appointed me to the bench. QDROs are an exception to the anti-assignment rules. If those rules do not apply, then you do not need a QDRO to divide the benefit, so the QDRO rules do not apply. That does not mean there are not issues with dividing the benefits, and some QDRO concepts are relevant, but that does not mean the QDRO rules should be applied directly. The inquiry is double digits old. I did not check the link. My interest is also double digits old. I may have missed the point.

The answer is all depends. One needs to know a number of facts. Did your last participant certificate say your account was in shares still or cash? Some ESOPs do what is called segregation to their terminated employees. Segregation is when the accounts shares are sold and your balance is put into a cash investment. If that happened you don't have any shares in the plan. If that didn't happen you do have shares. So go back and find your most recent certificate and see if it says your account balance is in shares or cash. I will say if your account was still invested in company shares at the time of the sale all shares have to be treated the same. It is just having a balance in an ESOP doesn't mean you always have shares in an ESOP If you can't find your most recent certificate from the plan you might want to make inquires to find out if the plan puts the account balances of terminated employees into cash investments shortly after people terminate or not.