The American Arbitration Association (AAA) significantly altered its rules for multiemployer pension plan arbitrations to respond to Pension Benefit Guaranty Board (PBGC) concerns and public comments regarding recent fee increases and the selection of arbitrators. Today, the PBGC published a Notice of Approval of AAA’s application of its amended rules. Click here for our alert on the changes, which discusses the welcome relief these amended rules provide employers who wish to challenge withdrawal liability assessments and the impact on arbitrating assessments between multiemployer plans and employers.
The Future of Retirement Plan Disclosures?
On October 23, 2019, the Department of Labor (DOL) published a proposed rule that would ease retirement plan administration by allowing broader use of electronic disclosure. This proposed rule was foreshadowed by an Executive Order issued in August 2018 directing the DOL to review actions that could be taken to improve the effectiveness of retirement plan disclosures under ERISA and to reduce the costs to employers.
Currently, plan sponsors can rely on a 2002 safe harbor for electronic delivery of documents and other information required under ERISA. However, the 2002 safe harbor is limited; notice can be provided electronically only to participants and beneficiaries who either (1) have work-related computer access or (2) provide affirmative consent to receive documents electronically (in addition to meeting certain other requirements). Anyone not falling within one of those categories must receive a hard copy.
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IRS Announces 2020 Dollar Limits for Employee Benefit Plans
The IRS has announced the dollar limits for contributions and benefits in retirement plans and certain deferred compensation plans for 2020. We have compiled a chart summarizing the key limits below, including how they compare with those in the previous year. Plan sponsors should confirm with their recordkeepers that all systems have been updated to reflect the 2020 limits.
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Another Bite at the Apple? Sacerdote II Revived by the Second Circuit
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals gave participants in New York University’s (NYU) retirement plans a second chance at pursuing their claims of plan mismanagement under ERISA. On October 1, 2019, the Second Circuit overturned the Southern District of New York’s dismissal of the participants’ lawsuit against the independent investment advisor who advised NYU on its retirement plans, even though the complaint alleged substantially the same claims against NYU in a separate lawsuit on which NYU prevailed.
In Sacerdote v. New York University (Sacerdote I), filed in 2016, retirement plan participants brought a class action alleging that NYU breached its fiduciary duties and committed prohibited transactions under ERISA by causing its retirement plans to pay unreasonable administrative and recordkeeping fees and maintain imprudent investment options. Plaintiffs subsequently filed a related action in November 2017, Sacerdote v. Cammack Larhette Advisors, LLC (Sacerdote II), against independent investment advisor Cammack Larhette Advisors, LLC (Cammack). The NYU defendants in Sacerdote II quickly moved to dismiss the suit as duplicative of Sacerdote I, and the Southern District of New York ultimately dismissed the action in its entirety, finding that defendants were in “privity with NYU in Sacerdote I because they had a sufficiently close relationship with NYU and their interests with aligned with those of NYU.”
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Traps for the Unwary: Is your Company’s Severance Arrangement Subject to ERISA?
Severance arrangements generally provide for cash payments to an employee whose employment is involuntarily terminated and may include certain benefits, such as subsidized medical coverage and outplacement assistance.
Severance arrangements take a variety of forms. Formal severance plans often are used as a retention tool for employees across the board with no individual negotiations. In our experience, companies with formal severance plans typically treat them as ERISA plans.
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Participant Data as a Plan Asset: Lessons Learned from Recent Class Action
In several recent ERISA plan lawsuits, plaintiffs have alleged that the plan fiduciary breached its fiduciary duties under ERISA with respect to participant data (e.g., participants’ ages, choice of investments, asset size, etc.), arguing that such participant data is a “plan asset” that the plan fiduciary failed to safeguard. Although ERISA does not specifically address whether participant data is a plan asset, the settlements reached in those lawsuits reveal an emerging trend that plan sponsors need to consider.
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A Lesson in ESOP Transactions: Do Your Diligence and Don’t Ignore Red Flags
In Pizzella v. Vinoskey, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia held that an independent fiduciary hired to represent the interests of participants in an employee stock ownership plan (the ESOP) engaged in a prohibited transaction and breached its fiduciary duties of prudence and loyalty in a $21 million transaction involving the ESOP’s purchase of stock from one of the company’s founders. The ESOP was awarded a $6.5 million judgment based on the amount that the Court determined the ESOP had overpaid for the stock. The Court held that the founder and independent fiduciary were jointly and severally liable for this judgment.
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In with a Bang and Out with a Whimper: Second Circuit Challenge to Popular Withdrawal Liability Calculation Method Settles
The withdrawal liability case of the year came to an anticlimactic end on Monday, September 16, 2019, as the Second Circuit docket sheet of New York Times Company v. Newspaper and Mail Deliverers’ Publishers’ Pension Fund pinged to life with a stipulation withdrawing the case with prejudice.
The most-watched issue in the case was a challenge to the Segal Blend discount rate assumption used by many multiemployer pension plans to calculate employer withdrawal liability. The discount rate assumption can have a massive effect on an employer’s withdrawal liability as even a small variation can dramatically increase a withdrawal calculation.
IRS Limited Expansion of Determination Letter Program
On September 1, 2019, the IRS reopened its determination letter program for two types of individually designed retirement plans: statutory hybrid plans and merged plans. For a detailed review of this limited expansion of the determination letter program, see our client alert, “IRS Announces Limited Expansion of the Determination Letter Program for Individually Designed Plans.”
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IRS Notice Expands Preventive Care Available under HDHPs
In Notice 2019-45 (the Notice) the IRS expands the definition of preventive care available under a high deductible health plan (HDHP) to include additional medical services and items for an individual with certain chronic conditions. This Notice was issued in response to President Trump’s June 2019 Executive Order on “Improving Price and Quality Transparency in American Healthcare to Put Patients First.” This Order directed regulatory agencies to issue guidance on a number of initiatives as a means to promote health care price transparency and enhance consumer-driven health care, such as health savings accounts (HSAs). The Notice responds to the Order’s directive that the IRS provide guidance expanding the definition of preventive care for participants with chronic conditions.
Individuals may contribute to a HSA if they are covered by a HDHP and have no disqualifying health coverage. To qualify as a HDHP, a health plan generally may not provide benefits, except for preventive care services, for any year until the participant satisfies the minimum deductible for that year. The Notice specifically expands the definition of preventive care that may be covered by a HDHP to include certain medical care services and items for chronic conditions. Based on the guidance, plan sponsors may amend their HDHPs to cover additional medical services and items for an individual with certain chronic conditions before the individual meets the HDHP deductible. Note that this expanded definition only applies for purposes of HDHPs and does not affect the definition of preventive care as used under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) rule prohibiting cost-sharing for network preventive care.
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