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“BenefitsLink continues to be the most valuable resource we have at the firm.”
-- An attorney subscriber
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43 Matching News Items |
| 1. |
Plan Fiduciary Considerations for Brokerage Windows (PDF)
Stradley Ronon, via Employee Benefit Plan Review 
Nov. 9, 2023
"[F]iduciaries must prudently and loyally select and monitor any brokerage window providers that they choose to make available through the plan. This includes evaluating things such as services, fees and conflicts of interest."
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| 2. |
How Plan Sponsors Can Build Sound Governance Structures Around Retirement Plans (PDF)
Stradley Ronon, via Employee Benefit Plan Review
Sept. 25, 2023
"[It] is important to clearly delineate and separate fiduciary committees (and their related actions and responsibilities) and non-fiduciary/ settlor committees (and their related actions and responsibilities) and to properly authorize and document these committees.... [C]ommittees, once established, should follow scheduled procedures and regularly be subject to review and revision to ensure continued compliance with both established procedures and newly implemented procedures."
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| 3. |
'Long Haul' COVID-19 Claims Under a Long-Term Disability Policy (PDF)
Stradley Ronon, via Employee Benefit Plan Review
June 2, 2023
"It is imperative that applications for long-term disability due to long-haul COVID-19 ... be scrutinized to determine if a claimant continues to be residually or totally disabled.... Engaging medical experts to review a claimant's medical records will be vital to ensuring that only legitimate claims are paid. It is expected that courts are likely to undertake a fact-based analysis, and as scientists begin better understand the effects of long-haul COVID-19, it is expected that there may be guidelines for diagnosis simi- lar to chronic fatigue."
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| 4. |
SECURE 2.0: Auto-Portability (PDF)
Stradley Ronon, via Employee Benefit Plan Review
Mar. 20, 2023
"SECURE 2.0 created a new prohibited transaction exemption covering the receipt of fees and compensation by an automatic portability service provider in connection with automatic portability transactions. Conditions of the exemption include the provision of certain disclosures and notifications and certain other requirements."
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| 5. |
Providing Family-Building Benefits (PDF)
Stradley Ronon, via Employee Benefit Plan Review
Feb. 7, 2023
"While self-insured health plans may have more flexibility to provide for coverage of certain family-building benefits, most fully-insured health plans do not offer comprehensive coverage for family-building.... Nevertheless, companies with insured and self-insured health plans are increasingly offering programs that cover a variety of family-building services without requiring a clinical infertility diagnosis."
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| 6. |
Reductions in Force: COBRA and Internal Revenue Code Considerations (PDF)
Stradley Ronon, via Employee Benefit Plan Review
Jan. 23, 2023
"If an employer intends for the COBRA continuation period to run concurrently with the subsidized coverage from the date of the qualifying event, the severance documentation should make this clear, and COBRA notices should be sent accordingly. Otherwise, the employee may mistakenly believe and argue that the COBRA continuation coverage begins when the subsidy ends."
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| 7. |
DOL Proposes Substantial Amendments to QPAM Exemption (PDF)
Stradley Ronon, via Employee Benefit Plan Review
Oct. 4, 2022
"These amendments would significantly impact entities that rely on the QPAM Exemption, as well as plans, plan fiduciaries, counterparties to transactions involving QPAMs and others. The amendments would impose significant compliance burdens and costs on QPAMs, including the need to amend existing agreements to comply with the conditions. Additionally, the indemnification and hold harmless provisions are likely to increase the potential liabilities of a QPAM that becomes disqualified."
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| 8. |
DOL Proposes New ESG and Proxy Voting Rule (PDF)
Stradley Ronon, via Bloomberg Law
Nov. 29, 2021
"The proposal is part of a long continuum of DOL guidance and rulemaking over the years to clarify how the consideration of ESG in investment decisions and proxy voting comports with the fiduciary duties under [ERISA].... [T]his proposed rule ... would both reaffirm the importance of ESG as a consideration by ERISA fiduciaries and strongly encourage the incorporation of ESG in ERISA plans and 'plan asset' funds."
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| 9. |
DOL Grants New Extension of Investment Advice Rulemaking
Stradley Ronon
Oct. 26, 2021
"For the period from Dec. 21, 2021 through Jan. 31, 2022, the DOL will not pursue prohibited transactions claims against investment advice fiduciaries who are working diligently and in good faith to comply with the Impartial Conduct Standards ... for transactions that are exempted in PTE 2020-02, nor will the DOL treat such fiduciaries as violating the applicable prohibited transaction rules. The DOL will not enforce the specific documentation and disclosure requirements for rollovers in PTE 2020-02 through June 30, 2022. All other requirements of the exemption, however, will be subject to full enforcement as of Feb. 1, 2022."
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| 10. |
New DOL Proposal May Be ERISA's Zero-to-One ESG Moment
Stradley Ronon
Oct. 20, 2021
"[T]he DOL fleshed out various types of ESG risks, and, in considerable detail, the multi-dimensional aspects to an ESG factor.... The proposal's granularity on different ESG risks will likely enhance broader understanding of these risks by fiduciaries, thus aiding adoption."
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| 11. |
Cybersecurity and Related Legal Risks Come Home to ERISA Plans (PDF)
Stradley Ronon, via Society of Financial Service Professionals
Aug. 10, 2021
"Plan sponsors will seek more transparency, whereas service providers may be reluctant to divulge too much on their cybersecurity defenses to guard against inadvertently offering up the keys to the castle. The balance of the two will become market practice. The DOL is ramping up enforcement in this area. Plan sponsors should also gird for class-action lawsuits with allegations of breaches of ERISA's duty of prudence when participant PII or plan asset data is mis-used."
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| 12. |
Cybersecurity and Related Legal Risks Come Home to ERISA Plans
Stradley Ronon
June 14, 2021
"The upshot of the DOL's April 2021 cybersecurity tips and best practices is that it puts employers on notice that both the DOL takes this seriously and that plaintiffs could attempt to use this new guidance as a basis for fiduciary duty breach claims. Moreover, service providers can expect detailed questions on cybersecurity in RFPs and RFIs. Plan sponsors will seek more transparency, whereas service providers may be reluctant to divulge too much on their cybersecurity defenses to guard against inadvertently offering up the keys to the castle. The balance of the two will become market practice."
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| 13. |
Significant ESG Movement on the ERISA Front
Stradley Ronon
May 24, 2021
"Legislation is afoot that would amend ERISA to expressly permit fiduciaries to account for environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors as part of their fiduciary duties.... [T]he bill provides that an investment selected based on ESG or similar factors may be a permissible [qualified default investment alternative (QDIA)] for a plan that uses a default investment option as part of its menu."
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| 14. |
Are You Sure You Can Use the QPAM Exemption?
Stradley Ronon
Apr. 7, 2021
"To be a QPAM ... is not tantamount to satisfying the QPAM Exemption. Moreover, the QPAM Exemption itself is subject to myriad conditions, the failure to meet only one of which can wreak havoc on a compliance strategy. [The authors] provide an overview and highlight potential trap doors in a Q&A format."
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| 15. |
COVID-19 Relief for Employees Who Participate in Flexible Spending Accounts
Stradley Ronon
Feb. 28, 2021
"The centerpiece ... is to combine the grace period and carryover rules. Conceptually there is no distinction between the grace period and carryover for PYs 2020 and 2021 PYs. In order to avoid confusion, the IRS refers to the period as the 'temporary extension period.' An employer has the discretion to adopt all, some or none of the opportunities presented by TCDRA and Notice 2021-15."
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| 16. |
DOL's Optical Illusion – Fiduciary Investment Advice Status
Stradley Ronon
Feb. 15, 2021
"[T]he reinstatement seems to offer great relief to various financial institutions that were possibly ensnared under the DOL's tricky 2016 conflicts of interest rule ... Interpretations by the DOL over the second half of 2020 suggests it will liberally interpret (and enforce) the five-part test for when one becomes an investment advice fiduciary."
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| 17. |
A Framework for the DOL’s New Proxy Voting Rule
Stradley Ronon
Jan. 7, 2021
"From a substantive standpoint, the rule compels fiduciaries to only exercise shareholder rights, including proxy voting, if they are undertaken solely in accordance with the economic interests of the plan and its participants and beneficiaries.... The costs of proxy voting and other shareholder rights must also be considered, as they too affect the economic interest of the plan.... The rest of the rule is more process-oriented, which speaks to how fiduciaries can satisfy these substantive obligations in practice."
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| 18. |
DOL Unveils Registration Requirements for Pooled Plan Providers
Stradley Ronon
Nov. 23, 2020
"A [pooled plan provider (PPP)] is at the heart of these new [pooled employer plans (PEPs)].... [T]he plan must designate the PPP and provide that the PPP is a plan administrator and 'named fiduciary' under ERISA.... [A] PPP will be subject to ERISA's fiduciary duties and other requirements. Each participating employer remains responsible for selecting and monitoring the PPP.... [T]here is an initial registration filing of basic identifying information about the PPP."
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| 19. |
Key Considerations: DOL’s New Final Regulation on ERISA’s Investment Duties (ESG-Related or Not)
Stradley Ronon
Nov. 11, 2020
"The final rule presents five distinct issues worth considering [1] pecuniary factors; [2] comparing investment alternatives; [3] duty of loyalty; [4] special circumstances/non-pecuniary factors/tie-breakers, and [5] QDIAs."
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| 20. |
New DOL Rule Proposal Risks Chilling Proxy Voting and Shareholder Engagement
Stradley Ronon
Sept. 2, 2020
"While the proposal allows the fiduciary to determine the 'appropriate investment horizon,' it raises the prospect that long-term benefits, which may not be readily quantifiable today, could be afforded less weight.... [T]he proposal suggests that the costs the issuer incurs as a result of the voting and engagement are effectively costs to the plan (the idea being, apparently, that any cost to the company's bottom line necessarily diminishes the value of the plan's investment)."
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