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A plan sponsor was acquired via stock sale. They were told that terminating their plan before the deal closed was advisable to provide more freedom of choice to their plan participants (a distributable event allowing more distribution choices, rather than face a plan merger under the successor plan rules). The acquiring entity also did not want to take on the liabilities present in an active qualified plan with operational defects. I don't have any details on the purchase agreement between the 2 parties, unfortunately, but will guess that not much was stated regarding the retirement plan. So now we have a terminated plan that still has a number of steps to fully shut down, including current and future compliance testing, tax form filings, potential refunds, distributions, etc.. Question 1: Am I correct is thinking the acquiror has every right to insist that those tasks (and costs) be handled by the acquiree? Question 2: Does the acquiror somehow inherently own the liability for the acquired company's plan anyway, absent anything in the purchase agreement specifying that the plan trustees/officers of the acquired co. are personally responsible until the plan is shut down and beyond? Thanks for any comments and observations!