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One of our sponsors acquired interests in a couple of companies late in 2014 and decided to bring the employees of their newly related entities into their 401(k) plan effective as of 1/1/2015. Unfortunately, they neglected to tell us, so no participation agreements were executed. Now here we are in late October 2015. To complicate things, one of the participating employers isn't part of a controlled or affiliated service group with the sponsor, so they also created a multiple employer plan. Obviously we have document and/or operational issues here. The way I see it there are two alternatives: 1) Correct the operational errors using SCP, although I haven't thought about what that would mean or if it would even be possible under SCP, but I'm sure nobody would like this result, or 2) Retroactively restate the plan effective as of 1/1/2015 onto our VS document, incorporate multiple employer provisions, and include participation agreements for the participating employers. Then file under VCP. I have no doubt the IRS would issue a compliance statement on these facts, but I'm looking for a way to avoid the costs of a filing for this sponsor without jeopardizing the qualified status of their plan, but I'm not seeing it! Anyone????

We have a plan that allows in-service distributions at 59.5 but by lump sum or equal installments (no partials). The sponsor has been allowing in-service distributions to take place paying out partial amounts over the last several years. What is the best way to fix the document. They wish to continue to allow this feature and have not been discriminatory on who may take one (HCs vs NHCs).