Update for Peter Gulia re: Non-qualified plans and DROs

[fmsinc]

Peter:  This is a belated response to your post in March, 2024: See attached Memo dealing the courts that have found plans who did not believe they were ERISA qualified were in fact qualified.  Other workarounds are also discussed. 

David 

PRELIMINARY ISSUES.pdf

[Bill Presson]

@Peter Gulia tagging him so he's more likely to see this.

[Peter Gulia]

DSG, thank you for thinking of me, and for sharing your research about courts’ decisions.

I recall a bit of folk wisdom from an inside counsel of a former client: ‘Lots of things can happen in court, all of them bad.’

Your case notes are a reminder about why, if I advise a plan’s sponsor about the plan’s governing documents, I often suggest an exclusive-forum provision. And why, except for a State or local government’s or a Native American Indian tribe’s plan, a plan’s administrator prefers a Federal court. And why a plan’s administrator might strive to avoid unnecessary contacts with a place other than the administrator’s office, preferably only one.

Domestic-relations courts’ difficulties also are a reminder about why many employee-benefits lawyers state in one’s engagement letter that the lawyer has no authority to accept service of process for the client or anyone.