ERISAQuestions1234

Looking to find any case law that concerns ERISA preemption of state legislation limiting the investment scope of pension plans concerning investments tied to China (or similar foreign adversaries). Note that last month 17 AGs gave notice to Blackrock, and similar providers, that inadequate disclosures (of material risks) for funds with Chinese investments potentially constituted a breach of fiduciary duty. https://www.asppa-net.org/news/2025/2/chinese-investments-evoke-concern-of-state-ags/ Similar federal legislation is also in the works: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/4008

Participant P is fired sometime mid year in 2020, does not meet last day requirement for profit sharing contribution. In 2021, participant is awarded (by a hearing officer for the company) back pay for lost wages and his/her termination is deemed a wrongful termination. Participant is reinstated as an employee and is a participant in the Plan once again. Is participant eligible for the 2020 profit sharing contribution he/she missed due to wrongful termination? Does the Plan Sponsor have a correction to make re the 2020 deferrals the participant should have been able to make with respect to the back pay?

Claims Admin Caused Breach that affected multiple Covered Entities, including over 500 individuals in totality. client is one Covered Entity but the breach only affects 20 of its employees. Does my client need to send out a public notice for the 500+ individual breach? I.e. is the 500 individual notification requirement aggregate all individual affected, even if they are from separate covered entities?

https://www.winston.com/en/benefits-blast/coronavirus-tax-free-section-139-benefits-silver-lining-on-the-cloud-of-a-novel-disaster.html Employer operates an essential business (power) and is offering to pay (or provide reimbursement for) to have additional employees lodged at facilities or near facilities (think either hotel or basically whatever they can come up with) along with transportation, food, child care, elder care etc... basically everything to have all hands on deck for this outbreak. Trying to determine if these abnormal short duration benefits would be taxable, seems like the stafford act may , via a Section 139 program, to allow for the reimbursement of these expenses. Any thoughts on whether this may be permissible

Does a self-insured health plan that charges premiums that produce a surplus, i.e. the total amount collected exceeds the claims paid/incurred, have to rebate any portion back to the employee? I cant seem to find an answer that clearly states that self-insured plans would be required to do so. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you! [Note: I have found PLR 200007025 [ https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-wd/0007025.pdf ] which deals with another issue but notes that the self funded plan discussed has the following structure "All premium payments (including the portion of the non-partner employee premium paid by Taxpayer) will be deposited into a dedicated account from which administrative expenses and eligible medical expenses under the Plan will be paid on behalf of all Plan participants. If the total premium payments are in excess of the claims and expenses incurred for a plan year, the excess will be used to pay claims and expenses of the Plan incurred in the following plan year and thus reduce premium payments for all participants in that following (or subsequent) plan year." The PLR ultimately concluded that the plan qualifies as a health insurance arrangement, but this is a PLR and nearly 20 years old.]

Thanks you David for responding to my question. I don't anticipate the amendment would be discriminatory since it is coming from a well funded multi-employer plan that is making the change for all current and future participants (and its not aimed or created based on the medical condition of a particular individual).

I can't find anything that explicitly states you can do this but I presume the 50% QPSA is the floor and raising it to a 100% QPSA is not an issue via an amendment to the DB plan. Thanks for any info you can provide.