401k Hardship Suspension Period and Restarting Deferrals

When is a participant permitted to resume his/her 401k deferral contributions following his/her 2018 Hardship distribution 6 month suspension period?  Is it immediately, or, must he/she wait until the Plan's next permitted "change", e.g. if Plan permits Quarterly changes, must he/she wait until the 1st of the next quarter following expiration of the suspension period?

Plan provides 6 mo suspension

Plan is SH401k

Plan provides the Participant must complete a new election following the 6 mo suspension bc the election is deemed to be zero at the point of Hardship distribution.

Generally speaking Participants may commence or change their deferral elections Quarterly (jan 1, apr 1, jul 1, oct 1).

Thank you!

I think this would be one of those (many) areas where the employer needs to interpret the plan document one way or the other, and then memorialize that decision in writing (e.g., an administrative procedure), and apply the policy-procedure on a uniform and consistent basis thereafter. I don't think you can get into too much trouble regardless of the preferred interpretation, i.e., I cannot think of a legal rule that compels a result one way or the other.  This appears to be a matter of drafting and interpretation.

The argument for ignoring the "permitted change" date specification is that a suspension period ends at the end of the six-month period, not when the next "choice" date comes around.  Further, using your words, the participant is deemed to have made a zero election (it was not an actual election), and that presumably didn't occur on a "permitted change" date but on the date of suspension, so if you are deeming the change to zero on a date other than the "permitted change" date, you the participant can un-deem that zero election at the end of the suspension period (such as by asking that deferrals commence again) without waiting for the next "permitted change" date.  In other words, only participants who have not requested hardships and have not therefore had their deferrals involuntarily suspended must wait until the next change date.

Starting In 2020, you will not need to struggle with this, since there will be no more suspensions.