Missing Trustee

[Guest Phil5421]

Does anyone know what steps can be taken when the trustee can not(or will not) be contacted? This is for a retirement plan for a company that actually went out of business about a year ago. Is there any way to work around the trustee as far as distributing remaining money in the plan to the few remaining participants?

[QDROphile]

Who has authority to appoint and remove the trustee?

[rcline46]

Report the plan to your local EBSA office as an abandoned plan. Give them what you have on the trustee, etc. They will find the trustee for you. Amazing how fast they respond when a solicitor from the DOL contacts them!

[Guest Phil5421]

I believe that the Trustee was also the owner of the company and is actually the only one who can appoint a new trustee.

[Peter Gulia]

Phil, if you're a service provider to the plan, think through your own interests before you put the Labor department on the situation. Often, EBSA investigates an abandoned-plan situation by asking a service provider to produce lots of records (often including information about investments and account balances) about the plan. The requests can get burdensome, and the DoL doesn't pay anything for your work and expense in collecting and copying records and responding to the written requests for information. Given your laudable desire to help the participants, you might be "okay with that", but it's better to make an informed choice to do charitable service.