A tenacious management consultant, convinced that his plan "fiduciary" had bungled his 401(k) retirement savings plan, took his employer to court to recoup what he said was the resulting shortfall in his account. He ultimately won the right to sue, but what his victory may mean for future plaintiffs is still uncertain. BLR spoke with two attorneys to help make better sense of it all.
There are experts out there who worry about how much you really know about your plan investments. They worry that you'll find yourself with an ERISA-liability problem if you don't learn just a little bit more.
A new government report expresses concern that longer-living retirees will exhaust their retirement assets early, especially the growing percentage of them who take lum-sum settlements.
Even as employers work diligently on their 2004 planning and budgets, new rules, regulations, and proposed legislation relating to benefits are about to make an already tough task more difficult. Here are highlights of just a few issues you should watch.
In July 2003, a federal court in Illinois ruled that IBM’s conversion from a traditional defined benefit plan to a cash balance retirement plan (CBP) violated federal prohibitions against age discrimination. Was it the death knell for all such CBP conversions? Maybe not.
As health care benefit costs continue to soar, employers should use the current
open-enrollment season to look for ways to lower administrative costs while
also educating employees on how to be better health care consumers, according
to an HR consulting firm.
An employer has been ordered to pay a life insurance beneficiary the difference between the benefits under an old version of the benefit plan and the revised version because the summary plan description (SPD) for the revised plan was not properly distributed and was never received by the employee.
Usually, someone seeking to overturn a denial of benefits in an ERISA plan must exhaust all of the appeals procedures provided in the plan before going to court. But not this time.
Once an ERISA fiduciary has material information relevant to a plan participant or beneficiary, it must provide that information, whether or not it is asked a question.
Among the lessons learned from this lawsuit: Employers should amend their severance plans so that they specifically provide the content of releases and nonsolicitation agreements.
