PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Forfeitures Under Fire
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Navigating Fiduciary Responsibilities in a Tide-Turning ESG Era
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Big Changes to Catch-Up Contributions in 2025
How ERISA Litigators Strengthen Plan Compliance and Risk Management: One-on-One with Jeb Gerth
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Good News for the ACA in 2025
#WorkforceWednesday®: New DOL Guidance - ERISA Plan Cybersecurity Update - Employment Law This Week®
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - New IRS Guidance on SECURE 2.0 Act Student Loan Employer Contributions
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Understanding Lifetime Income Products
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Trends in Recordkeeper Consolidation and Due Diligence
Long-Term Part-Time Employee Eligibility Rules Now in Effect — Troutman Pepper Podcast
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - What the J&J Case Means for Plan Administrators
What Can A Tax Attorney Do For You? A Podcast With Janathan Allen
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Understanding Fees in Retirement Planning
The No Surprises Act: A Cost Saving Opportunity for Employer Plan Sponsors
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - ESG Investing by Retirement Plans
Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation: Getting Ready for 2024 – Top-Hat Plans — Special Edition Podcast
Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation: Getting Ready for 2024 - Health and Welfare Plan Developments — Special Edition Podcast
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Auto-Portability: A New Way to Keep Retirement Savings Growing
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - IRS 2024 Health Plan Affordability Threshold May Put Some at Risk
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - SECURE 2.0 Act Relief for Plan Corrections
Employers that do not timely deposit participant deferrals and loan contributions to their employer sponsored retirement plans can be subject to Department of Labor (DOL) penalties for breaching their fiduciary duties....more
Our Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation Group discusses what plan sponsors and fiduciaries need to know about the Internal Revenue Service’s proposed changes for employees 50 or older who make additional elective...more
Happy Spring from the Kaufman & Canoles ESOPs, Benefits & Compensation team! We hope you’re shaking off the winter blues and ready for another round of benefits updates. ...more
Under SECURE 2.0, plan sponsors were granted discretion to determine whether or not the plan would recoup "inadvertent benefit overpayments." However, SECURE 2.0, did not define the term, leaving implementation of the new...more
The IRS issued Proposed Regulations last month which provide helpful clarity for employers on how to implement and comply with two new SECURE 2.0 provisions relating to catch-up contributions....more
The most recent wave of ERISA litigation is focused on the use of plan forfeitures in 401(k) plans, with the newest case, Armenta v. WillScot Mobile Mini Holdings Corp. being filed just last week. Although, for years, many...more
The DOL updated its voluntary fiduciary correction program (“VFCP”) which was introduced over 20 years ago to allow plan sponsors to corrected enumerated fiduciary breaches. The amended VFCP now allows for self-correction of...more
On Jan. 15, 2025, the Department of Labor (DOL) published updates to its Voluntary Fiduciary Correction Program (VFCP) to allow certain delinquent participant contributions, delinquent loan repayments and improper loans to be...more
The following checklist highlights key issues for corporate counsel with respect to employee benefit plans and executive compensation arrangements....more
We are pleased to present our annual End of Year Plan Sponsor “To Do” Lists. This year, we present our “To Do” Lists in four separate SW Benefits Updates. This Part 1 covers year-end health and welfare plan issues. Parts 2,...more
From the 2010 outset of its project to extend ERISA fiduciary status broadly to financial intermediaries, including insurance agents, the US Department of Labor (DOL) has consistently relied on the evolution of the private...more
One of the most basic duties of a defined contribution plan sponsor is to ensure that that there is no delay and participants’ salary deferral elections are correctly and timely deposited into the retirement plan. Not only is...more
Janathan Allen discusses what a tax attorney brings to the table that many other don’t. Ms. Allen notes that many attorneys don’t like numbers and yet there is so much in the business world that focuses upon the numbers...more
When a participant terminates employment without being fully vested in their qualified retirement plan account, the non-vested portion of the account is a “forfeiture.” While forfeitures are a common element of most...more
One question that often comes up is whether an expense related to an ERISA plan can be paid with plan assets. The decision of whether to use ERISA plan assets to pay an expense is an ERISA fiduciary decision. With the recent...more
On November 21, 2022, the US Department of Labor’s (DOL) Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) released a proposed amendment and restatement of the Voluntary Fiduciary Correction Program (VFCP), along with a...more
I have been an ERISA attorney for 23 years, I have seen a lot of strange things that plan sponsors have done to risk the ire of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Department of Labor (DOL). Many of these strange...more
Plan Provider Gimmicks You Need To be Aware Of - The retirement plan business is heavily competitive and so much of that deals with marketing. As a retirement plan sponsor, you need to separate the fluff from the real...more
The Department of Labor’s Prohibited Transaction Exemption and Its Impact on Recommendations to Plans, Participants and IRAs (Part 9) - On February 16, 2021, the DOL’s prohibited transaction exemption (PTE) 2020-02 became...more
Every year about this time, when the holiday season is just beginning and the new year is around the corner, all good qualified retirement plan sponsors (and plan administrators) ask: “Have we adopted all the IRS-required...more
Under ERISA, the federal law that regulates retirement and 401(k) plans, plan fiduciaries are required to prudently administer the plan, select and monitor plan investments and sufficiently diversify plan assets to minimize...more
Participants do not always prefer the investment choices retirement plans offer. Whether participants want additional ways to diversify their portfolios or have other reasons, participants are asking retirement plan sponsors...more
In this edition of our Newsletter, we take a look at a pair of cases that, while unrelated, together remind us of the importance of having clear plan rules in place that reflect the plan sponsor’s intention. The first article...more
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has primary jurisdiction over the qualified status of retirement plans, and this jurisdiction includes examining plans. At any point an IRS agent may contact a plan sponsor that its plan has...more
Health and Welfare Plan Update - It is 9:00 p.m., do you know where your health plan data is? As IT systems continue to expand, and data is accessed, moved and stored in many new and different ways, the Office for Civil...more