Ammending the Plan Summary

[Guest RCR]

Can an ESOP company ammend its plan summary regarding distributions? If so, what are the requirments?

Example: Current plan summary states an employee can receive distributions after terminating employment starting the year after the termination. Employee terminates employment Dec 22, 2002.(14yrs in the plan and 40 years old). According to the summary he can start receiving distributions over 5 years starting in June of 2003. The company changes its policy on distributions in June of 2003 stating the employee must wait for 5 years to start receiving distributions. When the employee quit the plan had not been ammended.

Is this legal? Is there a time frame a company must go by when ammending a plan summary?

The reason was that the company was strapped for money. or in financial trouble.

RCR