Merger of safe harbor plan into non-safe harbor plan due to business acquisition

[Belgarath]

Employer A sponsors safe harbor plan. Employer B sponsors non-safe harbor plan. B purchases 100% of the stock of A, mid-year. Wants to merge plans more or less immediately. Since 1.401(k)-5 dealing with mergers, etc., is "reserved" there's no solid guidance on this subject. Given that, do you think it is permissible, since plan A uses the "maybe not" notice, to do the merger if the 30-day advance eliminating the Safe Harbor notice is used? Is it permissible to use less than 30 days (I can't really find any support for this, but maybe I'm missing something. Of course, the purchasing employer, in its merger documents and its plan, would have to address all the coverage, nondiscrimination, protected benefits issues, etc.

Both plans are calendar year.

We are the TPA for plan A, and naturally, we weren't told about this in advance, nor did the purchase and sale agreement address ANY employee benefit plan issues. Classic...

Appreciate any thoughts.

edited typo...

And yet another edit - apparently all employees of A have already been moved to B - no further pay from A will be made. And B's plan was already amended to allow immediate eligibility for A's former employees. So a 30 day advance notice ain't possible. It doesn't seem reasonable that in such a merger/acquisition situation that A's safe harbor would be blown and ADP testing required, but again, no firm guidance...

[Bill Presson]

Interesting:

 

https://benefitslink.com/boards/topic/52525-merger-of-safe-harbor-plan-to-non-safe-harbor/