"[T]he Sixth Circuit became the first federal appellate court to weigh in, determining that ERISA prohibits employers from using unreasonable or outdated actuarial assumptions when calculating joint and survivor annuities. Just days later, the Eastern District of Missouri reached the opposite conclusion ... The decision whether to proactively amend plan assumptions is not straightforward. Updated assumptions can increase plan liabilities, and an amendment could be characterized as a tacit acknowledgment that the prior assumptions were inadequate, potentially strengthening retroactive claims."  MORE >>