ASPPA

Pension Consultant
Oneida Savings Bank [Pension Admin. Division]
in NY

Customer Care Specialist
Concordia Plan Services, The Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod
in MO

Director, Marketing
Transamerica Retirement Solutions
in ANY STATE

Plan Consultant
TPA firm in Stamford CT
in CT

Defined Benefit Administrator
Growing TPA Firm in Suffolk County, New York
in NY

Investment-Qualified Relationship Manager and Administrator
NestEggs, Inc.
in FL

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Importance of Operating Controls for Employee Benefit Plans
August 20, 2014 WEBCAST
(McGladrey LLP)

Implementing VM-20: A Practical Approach Seminar
August 27, 2014 in NY
(Society of Actuaries)

ERISA Turns 40: The Past, Current and Future State of Pension Plans
September 9, 2014 WEBCAST
(ABA Joint Committee on Employee Benefits)

Fiduciary Training Mini-Conference
September 18, 2014 in FL
(PSCA [Plan Sponsor Council of America])

View All Webcasts and Conferences

[Official Guidance]

Text of DOL Field Assistance Bulletin 2014-01: Fiduciary Duties and Missing Participants in Terminated Defined Contribution Plans
"At a minimum, fiduciaries should take all of the following steps before abandoning efforts to find a missing participant and obtain distribution instructions.... [1] Use Certified Mail.... [2] Check Related Plan and Employer Records.... [3] Check With Designated Plan Beneficiary.... [4] Use Free Electronic Search Tools.... A plan fiduciary should consider the size of a participant's account balance and the cost of further search efforts in deciding if any additional search steps are appropriate.... In [some] cases, the plan fiduciaries will have no choice but to select an appropriate distribution option to complete the plan's termination.... If a plan fiduciary cannot find an individual retirement plan provider to accept a direct rollover distribution for a missing participant or determines not to make a rollover distribution for some other compelling reason ... the fiduciary may consider two other options.... [1] opening an interest-bearing federally insured bank account in the name of the missing participant or beneficiary, or [2] transferring the account balance to a state unclaimed property fund.... 100% Income Tax Withholding Is Not An Option." (Employee Benefits Security Administration [EBSA], U.S. Department of Labor [DOL])  

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[Guidance Overview]

Pension Funding Relief: What's In It for My Plan?
"The key takeaways for plan sponsors are: [1] required contributions for 2013-2020 will likely be lower than under prior law, and [2] if interest rates remain at today's levels, the law does not decrease the ultimate cost for plan sponsors as it only defers contributions to future years." (Nyhart)  

[Guidance Overview]

Puerto Rico Treasury Issues Guidance on Tax Prepayment Window on Retirement Plans (PDF)
"[T]he Puerto Rico Treasury Department recently issued Administrative Determination No. 14-16 (AD 14-16) ... [which] clarifies that the Prepayment may be made on all or part of both the Participant's account balance in the case of a defined contribution plan or the present value of the Participant's accrued benefit in the case of a traditional defined benefit pension plan ... [T]he plan sponsor has not only the discretion whether to allow distributions from a plan for the Prepayment, but also has discretion to whether maintain or not maintain record-keeping of the Prepayments." [Text of AD 14-16 is available in Spanish.] (Groom Law Group)  

Text of Sixth Circuit Opinion: Employer Cannot Challenge Multiemployer Plan Withdrawal Liability by Claiming Negligent Mismanagement of Plan Assets (PDF)
"Plaintiff does not challenge an assessment of liability or defendants' mathematical calculation. Rather, plaintiff contends that defendants negligently managed the Plan, primarily by ratifying contribution rates that were insufficient to support the benefits owed by the Plan, and in doing so, directly caused a large portion of the $1,755,733 withdrawal liability.... ERISA is not silent on who holds a claim against trustees for negligent management of plan assets: participants and beneficiaries do. By omission, employers do not... [We] presume that Congress deliberately omitted this remedy from the statutory scheme because the trustees' plan-management duties flow to participants and beneficiaries, not contributing employers[.]" [DiGeronimo Aggregates, LLC v. Zemla, No. 12-2095 (6th Cir. Aug. 14, 2014)] (U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit)  

State Supreme Court Determines Washington State Can Eliminate Public Pension Increases
"[The Washington State Supreme Court] found lawmakers were within their rights in 2007 when they repealed a 'gain-sharing' benefit that paid employees more when investment returns on pension trust funds exceeded expectations, and in 2011 when they repealed automatic cost-of-living adjustments for certain retirees. In each case, the Legislature had reserved the right to eliminate the benefits in the future[.]" (Tri-City Herald)  

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New Websites Try to Fill Gaps in 401(k) Fee Disclosure Regs, But Fall Short
"There are a growing number of websites that claim to use technology to help sponsors or participants understand or uncover 401k fees.... The problem is that definitive fee information is buried in the fine print (and footnotes!) of plan disclosure documents. Without access to the actual disclosure documents, the best any of these sites can do is make an educated guess regarding fees. Estimates, however well-reasoned, are not enough." (Employee Fiduciary)  

Retention of Plan Documents: A Primer
"It is the duty of the plan sponsor to maintain these documents. It may be the case that a plan sponsor has complied with ERISA because the contracted TPA does, in fact, have every plan document from the inception of the plan until now, but what if there are missing documents? Who is liable if the TPA does not have a document? The liable party is most likely the plan sponsor." (Pension Consultants Inc.)  

Bond Insurer Claims Fraud in Detroit Pension Debt Lawsuit
"[The Federal Guaranty Insurance Company (FGIC)] said it agreed to issue insurance policies that earned the [city's 'certificates of participation'] triple-A ratings based on representations from the city and its lawyers that the debt was a legal vehicle for Detroit to raise money for its constitutionally mandated obligation to fund its two employee retirement systems. 'The city now alleges in its complaint that the many representations and statements it made in connection with pension funding transactions were false,' FGIC's filing stated. 'The city intended for its fraudulent statements to induce FGIC's issuance of the policies.'" (Reuters)  

Pension Funding Index, August 2014
"The funded status of the 100 largest corporate defined benefit pension plans decreased by $5 billion during July ... The deficit rose to $257 billion from $252 billion at the end of June, primarily due to declines in equity and fixed income returns during July. As of July 31, the funded ratio declined to 85.0%, down from 85.3% at the end of June." (Milliman)  

Phased Retirement for Employees: How Federal Government Is Leading the Way
"Worker interest in a flexible glide path to retirement is strong, and it's not limited to the federal payroll. A survey this year ... found that 64 percent of workers -- of all ages -- envision a phased retirement involving continued work with reduced hours.... Employers have been slow to respond. Just 21 percent of respondents ... said their employers offer phased retirement -- and that figure may be too optimistic." (Reuters)  

SEC Implements Money Market Fund Reform to Protect Investors
"[T]he SEC's goal in making these changes is to prevent a mass exodus out of these funds during a time of financial insecurity. However, in anticipation of the reform, large investors, including institutions and corporations, have already begun pulling assets out of prime funds, and the trend is expected to continue. With some investors looking to get out before the reform goes into effect, the current $2 trillion in money market assets is likely to shrink over the next 24 months." (Ascende)  

De-Risking Trend Redefining the Global Pension Market
"[T]he trustees of the BT Pension Scheme in the U.K. announced a record-breaking longevity risk transfer transaction that will provide long-term protection and income to the pension scheme ... The transaction covers approximately 16 billion GBP (over $27 billion) in pension liabilities or 25% of BTPS' longevity risk exposure. The BTPS transaction is the largest transfer of pension risk to date and proves that the biggest defined benefit pension funds in the world have a clear and tested path to a lower risk future." (Employee Benefit News)  

J.P. Morgan Accused of Self-Dealing in Managing Church Trust Fund
"The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis, states J.P. Morgan Chase lost money because, as lone trustee for the trusts, the firm purchased more than 177 different investment products, 'mostly from itself, using church funds because they produced the highest revenues to J.P. Morgan, to the detriment of Christ Church.' ... From late 2007 to the end of 2008, the losses brought down the trusts' assets to $27 million from about $39 million.... J.P. Morgan no longer is trustee for the two funds." (Pensions & Investments)  

How Exactly Fidelity Investments Extracted Itself from a Legal and HR Quagmire
"[T]he lingering conflict here is that Fidelity is making some major league changes in how it manages the 401(k) plan of its employees. But it refuses to admit to an iota of wrongdoing.... [A] deeper look at true economic value of this deal suggests it could increase the nest eggs of employees by hundreds of millions over time as Fidelity eats more plan costs and goes bigger on its matching contributions." (RIABiz)  

[Opinion]

Why Your 401(k) Is Worth Suing Over
"The biggest reason to sue is over excessive fees: You could be getting ripped off in your plan. Expenses on mutual funds within the plans should be rock-bottom. You can buy an index fund of nearly every big U.S. stock for as low as 0.04 % a year (in the Schwab U.S. Large-Cap ETF). That compares to about 1 percent for the average stock mutual fund. Yet brokers and middlemen adore 401(k)s. They can get rich over gouging employees with their onerous fees." (Forbes)  

[Opinion]

The Case of the Deleted Social Security Data: Why It's Bad for Workers and Retirees
"[W]hen policymakers shape legislation to expand retirement savings and pension coverage, it's important for them to know the truth about how much Social Security provides, which isn't a lot. For the typical retiree, Social Security averages just over $15,000 a year -- about equivalent to the federal minimum wage. Women get even less.... Opponents of Social Security know that there's more than one way to skin a cat. If they can't get benefits cuts today, they'll simply cut the information required to protect the system." (Pension Rights Center)  

[Opinion]

The Big Hole in the Social Security Report
"[T]he trustees of the Social Security system (the Social Security commissioner, the secretaries of the treasury, of health and human services, and of labor, and two public trustees) decided to eliminate any mention of replacement rates from the 2014 Trustees Report -- the document that provides an annual update on the system's finances in the short run and over a 75-year horizon. The absence of such information has serious policy implications." (Alicia H. Munnell, via MarketWatch)  

Text of First Circuit Opinion: Claimant Entitled to Attorney's Fees Because Procedural Victory Increased Likelihood of Successful Benefit Claim (PDF)
"[A] remand for a second look at the merits of her benefits application is often the best outcome that a claimant can reasonably hope to achieve from the courts.... [T]he question in each case is whether the claimant has achieved something more than trivial or procedural success. When an ERISA beneficiary has earned a second look at her claim based on a deficient first review, her success can be equally consequential whether or not the identified flaw is explicitly linked by the remanding court to a statute or regulation[.]" [Gross v. Sun Life Assurance Co. of Canada, No. 12-1175 (1st Cir. Aug. 14, 2014)] (U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit)  

ISS Launches New Data Verification Portal Allowing Companies to Check Their Equity Plan Data
"The noble goal is to ensure that ISS' proxy analyses will better reflect the latest and most accurate data for each company receiving a proxy recommendation.... ISS is encouraging affected companies to register to receive notification of the availability of their data. Upon notification by ISS, companies will have two business days to verify the data and/or request modifications." (Winston & Strawn LLP)