"This notice provides guidance on the corporate bond monthly yield curve, the corresponding spot segment rates ... and the 24-month average segment rates ... [as well as] the interest rate on 30-year Treasury securities ... as in effect for plan years beginning before 2008 and the 30-year Treasury weighted average rate[.]"  MORE >>

"The Ninth Circuit could reject the position taken by the DOL in its entirety. However, a position expressed by the DOL to an appellate court may at a minimum have a chilling effect on future forfeiture allocation litigation challenges. The DOL has at a minimum, provided some hope to those fiduciaries involved in the fifty or so other similar cases that are currently active." [Hutchins v. HP Inc., No. 23-5875 (N.D. Calif. Feb. 5, 2025; on appeal to 9th Cir. No. 25-826; DOL amicus brief filed Jul. 9, 2025)]  MORE >>

"President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order aimed at opening 401(k) and other retirement plans to private investments ... The order would mandate the [DOL] and [SEC] to provide guidelines to employers and plan administrators around private investments. These guidelines could assuage plan managers' concerns about legal liabilities around private investments, which have higher fees than many other kinds of investments that currently populate 401(k) plans."  MORE >>

"While both MEPs and PEPs offer scale, PEPs are designed to streamline operations and reduce risk in a more standardized way.... Trade associations with MEPs often lack the 'central nervous system' of common payroll remittance or integration, whereas PEOs naturally have this built into their ecosystem.... A PEP, supported by a registered PPP and enabled by modern technology, can offer a more cohesive and less burdensome solution[.]"  MORE >>

"Digital experiences are increasingly important in RFPs and are winning and losing firms millions of dollars.... [C]ustomers have come to expect that they should be able to accomplish anything from their phone that they can do from a computer. This has objectively seeped into how retirement plan participants track and manage their retirement accounts[.]"  MORE >>

22 pages. "At year‑end 2024, 401(k) plan assets totaled $8.9 trillion, with 38 percent invested in equity mutual funds. In 2024, 401(k) plan participants who invested in equity mutual funds paid an average expense ratio of 0.26 percent....The mutual fund expense ratios that 401(k) plan participants incur have declined substantially since 2000.... Employers and employees generally share the costs of operating 401(k) plans."  MORE >>

"The Office of the Inspector General has announced that it is about to begin an examination of PBGC oversight of small, single-employer pension plans.... The OIG is conducting the review in order to determine if the PBGC adequately reviewed trusteed small, single-employer pension plans."  MORE >>

"This model legislation sets the major elements for the retirement plan, including provisions regarding employee eligibility and participation, vesting, contribution amounts, investment structures, benefit forms, recordkeeper structures, and plan governance and administration. The model legislation also requires communicating with and educating plan participants on the plan and the shared responsibility of employers and employees in creating a successful retirement program. It requires participants to be checked periodically to assess whether each participant is on track to meet their retirement needs and objectives, and to recommend corrective actions."  MORE >>

"Without the ability to retain and understand lessons from past mistakes in designing, funding, and managing public pensions, public policymakers are doomed to repeat the same pension management errors and create new cycles of pension problems for the state, local governments, and taxpayers."  MORE >>

36 pages. "[T]he district court's erroneous determination that fiduciary-breach claims under 29 U.S.C. § 1132(a)(3) are not subject to ERISA's statutory time bar in 29 U.S.C. § 1113, but rather only an equitable laches defense, threatens to erase the time limit established by Congress for a cause of action that is frequently invoked in ERISA class actions seeking tens of millions of dollars in supposedly 'equitable' relief. Endorsing that holding would have a profoundly destabilizing effect on plan sponsors and the decisions they make with respect to employee-benefit plans." [Guenther v. BP Retirement Accumulation Plan, No. 16-0995 (S.D. Tex. Mar. 28, 2024; on appeal to 5th Cir. No. 24-20551)]  MORE >>

"[T]he Tenth Circuit agreed with the Ninth Circuit's ultimate decision in Castillo, which was that attorney's fees are not available under Section 1132(a)(3) as a form of equitable relief. The Tenth Circuit ruled that because ERISA explicitly addresses the availability of fees in Section 1132(g), it is improper to apply other provisions in ERISA, such as Section 1132(a)(3), to award the same relief." [Stark v. Reliance Standard Life Ins. Co., No. 24-6137 (10th Cir. July 8, 2025)]  MORE >>