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ERISA Workshop
October 27, 2015 in WI
(SunGard Relius)

Advanced Plan Design Workshop
October 28, 2015 in WI
(SunGard Relius)

What the Healthcare Law Means for your Small Business
October 29, 2015 WEBCAST
(U.S. Small Business Administration [SBA])

Experts' Guide to Employee Benefits Research
November 12, 2015 WEBCAST
(ABA Joint Committee on Employee Benefits)

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[Guidance Overview]

An Overview for Investment Managers: DOL's Proposal to Define Investment Advice (PDF)
13 pages. "The Proposal is truly unprecedented in that the Department proposes to use its regulatory authority to regulate the IRA marketplace and require providers to meet compliance requirements that are more demanding than currently required under the Code and, arguably, more demanding than those currently required under federal and state securities laws and state insurance laws. While the definition of 'investment advice,' the BIC Exemption, and the changes to the PTEs are only proposed and the Department must sift through hundreds of comments letters and three and a half days of hearing testimony, the Department is motivated to produce a final rule and has White House support.... Application of the final rule to IRAs should be expected." (Groom Law Group via The Investment Lawyer)  

[Advert.]

Feeling Left Out? It's Time to Get "Ahead of the Curve"

This October the nation's retirement industry elite will converge in our nation's capital to get "Ahead of the Curve" with insights from industry insiders, regulators, pundits and the nation's leading voices. It's ASPPA Annual. Join us.

[Guidance Overview]

SEC Proposes Liquidity Management Reforms for Open-End and Exchange-Traded Funds
"Under the proposed reforms, mutual funds and ETFs would be required to implement liquidity risk management programs and enhance disclosure regarding fund liquidity and redemption practices. The proposal is designed to better ensure that investors can redeem their shares and receive their assets in a timely manner." (Mayer Brown)  

Text of PBGC FY 2014 Projections Report (PDF)
57 pages. "After updating the model, and incorporating the premium increases and other provisions under MPRA, but assuming no plans elect suspensions or partitions, PBGC's projected 2024 multiemployer deficit averages $44.3 billion discounted to today's values. The solvency of the multiemployer program fund is extended by three years; the multiemployer program fund is more likely than not to run out of money in 2025 rather than 2022." [Also available: press release and Frequently Asked Questions.] (Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation [PBGC])  

GAO Report on Retirement Security: Federal Action Could Help State Efforts to Expand Private Sector Coverage
"GAO examined: [1] recent estimates of coverage, including access and participation, as well as characteristics of workers who lack coverage; [2] strategies used by states and other countries to expand coverage; and [3] challenges states could face given existing federal law and regulations. GAO primarily used SIPP data from 2012 (the most recent available).... GAO suggests that Congress consider providing states limited flexibility regarding ERISA preemption to expand private sector coverage. Agency actions should also be taken to address uncertainty created by existing regulations." (U.S. Government Accountability Office [GAO])  

Website Privacy Policies and the FTC's Authority Over Retirement Plans
"Remembering that ERISA does NOT preempt the application of other federal law (like the SEC, Anti-Money Laundering, and the Patriot Act rules -- just to name a few), ... we now may find ourselves needing to deal with the Federal Trade Commissions standards as well. The issue arises from something as innocuous as the website privacy policies which are so commonplace on retirement plan vendor websites (you know, those things know one ever reads or pays attention to). Well, it appears to matter to the Federal Trade Commission." [FTC v. Wyndham Worldwide, No. 14-3514 (3d Cir. Aug. 24, 2015)] (Business of Benefits)  

[Advert.]

Now is a great time to join Worldwide Employee Benefits Network (WEB)

WEB members represent more than 25 professions and 30 areas of expertise within the pension and benefits industry-including administrators, consultants, attorneys, accountants, investment managers, communications experts and benefits managers. Join today.

Holding Your Breath: A Strategy for Mitigating Litigation Risk Over Fees (PDF)
"Outside of the [retirement plan] committee's documentation, the statute of limitation under ERISA Section 413 provides another method built into ERISA that is often forgotten but which is very effective in mitigating litigation risk for a claim of excessive fees.... [If] a fiduciary combines documentation with an action plan that complies with the 3-year statute of limitation requirements, the fiduciary has effectively reduced exposure to monetary damages by 50%.... Since TPAs and record keepers are the gate keepers for the majority of this information, it seems logical they will become the go-to solution for this risk mitigation strategy." (David Witz, via Plan Consultant)  

Who Pays 401(k) Fees -- Us or Them? (PDF)
"According to Deloitte's 2015 Annual Defined Contribution Benchmarking Survey, the number of employers completely covering the cost of fees declined again in 2015 to 36% compared to 40% in 2013-14 and 50% in 2012. Whether you are an employer whose employees are already paying some or all of the plan costs, or are considering doing so, here are some important considerations to keep in mind." (The Retirement Plan Blog)  

Are Plain-Vanilla 401(k) Investment Options a Fiduciary Imperative?
"Rather than rely on the employee to determine the correct point of view of his personal adviser, it may be more reasonable to place that responsibility on the fiduciary duty of the plan sponsor who then can offer employees with the proper menu of the core building blocks.... Once limited to the domain of institutional players like university endowments, these Alternative investments (Alts) now find themselves readily available in product form -- the kind of product that can easily find itself in a 401k plan menu. Can what works for institutional investors work in a similar manner for individual investors?" (Fiduciary News)  

Weak Markets Mean 401(k) Opportunities for Executives
"The bad equity markets have one silver lining for those executives in your organization that might have large 401(k) account balances: In-plan conversions to Roth 401(k) accounts.... Converting pre-tax 401(k) balances into after-tax Roth 401(k) balances results in taxation of the previously tax-free amounts. Converting when the account value is lower may result in a substantial tax savings." (Lawton Retirement Plan Consultants)  

It's Sleazy and Totally Illegal, Yet It Could Become the Future of Retirement
"At their peak, around the turn of the century, tontines represented nearly two-thirds of the American insurance market, holding about 7.5 percent of national wealth. It's estimated that by 1905, there were 9 million tontine policies active in a nation of only 18 million households.... To this day, tontines remain outlawed, and their name is synonymous with greed and corruption.... Now, a growing chorus of economists and lawyers is wondering if the world wasn't too hasty in turning its back on tontines. These financial arrangements, they say, have aspects that make a lot of sense despite their history of disrepute." (The Washington Post; subscription may be required)  

Fiduciary Rule Backers Have a New Ally: Technology
"Welcome to the campaign the financial services industry is waging via television, the web and e-mail, in hopes of convincing the public that the new fiduciary standard rule ... is bad for consumers of retirement savings advice -- the very group intended to benefit from the regulation. This campaign ... has taken on David-and-Goliath proportions. That is because most proponents of the rule are generally not in the for-profit world and have tiny budgets. But there may be good news for those in favor of consumer protections: Increasingly, more sophisticated technology is enabling less conflicted, less costly advice for the masses." (Institutional Investor)  

Trade Groups Fixin' for a Legal Fight Over ERISA Fiduciary Rules
"Trade groups say it's too early to talk about potential legal action before the final rule is issued ... but if the final version doesn't include significant changes to the current proposal, as many observers expect, a legal challenge would definitely be on the table." (Financial Advisor)  

Millennials Crave Face-to-Face Advice
"[A recent IRI] study found that the large majority (87 percent) of millennials definitely want an advisor who will meet with them personally. That percentage is very close to the percentage of those in Generation X (89 percent) who said the same, and of baby boomers, 92 percent of whom also have that requirement for advisors.... [W]hen doing retirement planning, more than half (62 percent) of surveyed millennials said they would like to be walked through each step of the process. Only 19 percent of millennials said they are likely to use a robo-advisor." (InsuranceNewsNet.com)  

DB Plans Move Away from Emerging Markets, Increase Multi-asset Use
"[T]he percentage of defined benefit investors that indicated they would use global equity funds in their asset allocation in the next three years rose to 69% in 2015 from 56% in 2013; infrastructure to 65% from 45%; traditional passive funds to 70% from 53%; real estate to 68% from 55%; low-variance equities to 62% from 52%; and alternative credit to 56% from 46%." (Pensions & Investments)  

[Opinion]

Coalition Letter to Congress on DOL's Proposed Rulemaking Expanding Fiduciary Investment Advice Under ERISA (PDF)
18 pages. "Because an advisor to a small plan is not carved out of the rule, the advisor who is trying to market retirement saving options to a small plan is considered to be providing investment advice and must determine how to comply with the rule. Advisors to large plans are not burdened with these additional hurdles.... [T]he new exemption proposed by the DOL may not apply to small business plans.... Even if the new exemption -- called the 'Best Interest Contract Exemption' -- does apply, it would itself substantially increase costs for advisors due to its many conditions and requirements.... [T]he DOL's proposed regulations risk hurting the very small businesses and workers they are intended to protect." (Approximately 500 Trade Associations, Chambers of Commerce, Employer Organizations, and Small Businesses)  

[Guidance Overview]

Law and Background on Prohibited Transactions, Investment Advice, and Fiduciary Status with Respect to Retirement Plans, IRAs, HSAs and MSAs (PDF)
62 pages. "The Subcommittee on Oversight of the Committee on Ways and Means of the House of Representatives has scheduled a public hearing on September 30, 2015, on the [DOL's] proposed fiduciary rule. This document ... provides a description of present law relating to prohibited transactions, investment advice, and fiduciary status with respect to retirement plans and individual accounts and data relating to such plans and accounts." [JCX-131-15, Sept. 28, 2015] (Joint Committee on Taxation [JCT], U.S. Congress)  

Pension, Patent Rights at Stake in Supreme Court Case
"The Spokeo case presents the question of whether Congress can confer constitutional standing on plaintiffs who have not suffered a concrete injury by authorizing private rights of action for violations of federal statutes.... If Spokeo wins the broad holding its lawyers ... are advocating, class actions under all sorts of consumer and civil rights statutes ... will be endangered.... The nonprofit Pension Rights Center argued in its amicus brief that if the Supreme Court decides Congress can't confer constitutional standing, pensioners may lose their right to sue under ERISA, 'thus preventing them from remedying alleged fiduciary breaches or other violations of their statutory rights or enforcing reporting, disclosure, vesting and funding obligations.' " [Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, No. 13-1339 (cert. pet. granted Apr. 27, 2015; argument sched. Nov. 2, 2015)] (Alison Frankel via Reuters)  

DOL Weighs in Again on Select Group Requirement for Top Hat Plans (PDF)
"While there is very little guidance in the legislative history of ERISA on this Select Group requirement, exploring the guidance from federal court cases is important in determining the landscape of the Select Group issue. With the exception of the DOL's recent amicus brief, most of the useful guidance on this issue has come from [several] federal court cases ... The courts have taken varied and sometimes conflicting approaches[.]" (Groom Law Group via Bloomberg BNA Pension & Benefits Daily)  

Perceptions of Shareholders and Employees Are Chief Company Concerns About CEO Pay Ratio Disclosure
"While many companies continue to have concerns about the mechanics of complying with the new CEO pay ratio disclosure rule -- gathering the pay data, choosing the right sampling approach and identifying the median employee -- even more are concerned about explaining the pay-setting process to employees and about how their pay ratio will look in comparison to other companies' ratios." (Towers Watson)  

IRI Honors Financial Services Leaders
Insured Retirement Institute [IRI]

LPL Enhances Retirement Partners Tool Suite
LPL Financial

Genstar Capital and Aquiline Capital Partners To Acquire Ascensus from J.C. Flowers
Ascensus

Securian Continues to Add Expertise to Retirement Plans Group
Securian Financial Group

Delaware Valley Retirement, Inc. is Certified to Industry Best Practices
Centre for Fiduciary Excellence [CEFEX]

ECFC Leads Charge to Revise Cadillac Tax
ECFC [Employers Council on Flexible Compensation]

Department Awards $1.55M to Study Paid Family, Medical Leave Implementation
Employee Benefits Security Administration [EBSA], U.S. Department of Labor

Lockton Expands Leadership Roles for Spencer, Nimmo, Hammond
Lockton

Employee Fiduciary Releases a Real-world Database of Small Business 401k Fees that Names Names with Full Dollar Cost Disclosures
Employee Fiduciary, LLC

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