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If the plan has reached the point of filing a Standard Termination Notice, you must inform the PBGC that the enrolled actuary's certification of sufficiency (Schedule EA-S) is no longer valid. The plan sponsor should then initiate a distress termination by issuing a new Notice of Intent to Terminate to participants and to the PBGC (which is a recipient of NOIT's in distress terminations but not in standard terminations). If the Standard Termination Notice hasn't yet been filed, the PBGC doesn't yet know "officially" about the termination. A distress termination NOIT should be issued. It goes without saying that you should apprise the PBGC personnel with whom you have been communicating about the client's altered circumstances.

Or they could consider terminating the plan now and creating a Qualified Replacement Plan. It might not eat up all of the excess, but it could shelter some of it from the 50% reversion tax. The enrolled actuary can make the calculations to determine if this is worthwhile, which includes a reasonable estimate of how the 415 limit might increase.

Implied in the OP is that a Form 500 has been filed. Please clarify.

Is there anything in this particular plan document that says a loan becomes payable in full immediately upon the employee becoming a union member (or more generally, transferring to an excluded class of employees)? Usually I would only see that kind of provision apply upon termination of employment, but I suppose it could happen. Absent that, I don't think so. The employee continues to repay it through payroll deduction (assuming that's what the loan policy says). Transferring to an excluded class means you are not entitled to future contributions. Loan repayments are not contributions.

I believe you are required to File Form 10 to notify the PBGC within 30 days unless an exception applies. Filing a distress termination with the PBGC may qualify as notice, I haven't looked. But one way or another, you are going to have to involve the PBGC to terminate the Plan.

No

Not necessarily. Did plan have provision to allow in-service at 59.5? Even so, the plan still was terminated and that is the event triggering the successor plan rules. Starting a new plan would not be w/o risk, so I would proceed forewarned.

(and hopefully the plan's document "guarantees gateway" as needed for those with only the SH allocation prescribed)

Yes. Safe harbor non-elective is considered to be the same as profit sharing for 410(b) and 401(a)(4) purposes.

As C.B. Zeller implies, you have to read the plan document because there is a small chance that your plan contains a 5-year suspense account provision instead of a cash-out and buyback provision, in which case you would have to vest the suspense account. Also, you do not provide a full description of potentially important facts. If the individuals were a substantial portion of the workforce and they terminated in connection with a winding down or shrinking of your business, you could have what is called a "partial termination" that would require full veting.

No they don't need to become vested. The language will be in your plan document regarding the timing of forfeitures. It will (should) say that a participant incurs a forfeiture immediately when they take a distribution of their vested benefit. For participants who don't take a distribution, they will (should) incur a forfeiture after 5 consecutive 1-year breaks in service. The termination requires that all participants become 100% vested as of the date of the termination. The people who took their distributions don't have any unvested balance as of the date of the termination, so they don't get the 100% vesting. This is typical language, but read your plan document carefully. It might differ.

Ownership attribution goes one up and two down: HCE's parents (1 up) and his/her children and grand children (2 down). It also goes once laterally, that is HCE's spouse. No other spouses or relatives of the others. (Try to picture a family tree, with generations going down).