PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - What the J&J Case Means for Plan Administrators
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Understanding Fees in Retirement Planning
The Form 5500: What All Employers and Plan Administrators Need to Know and How to Avoid Costly Fines
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Back to the Future: SECURE Act and SECURE Act 2.0
NOWOTNY KNOWS SQUAT! Part IV Using Post-Retirement Medical Plans to Raise AUM and Sell Life Insurance
NOWOTNY ON DEATH AND TAXES EPISODE 35 USING POST-RETIREMENT MEDICAL PLANS TO RAISE AUM
KNOCK YOURSELF OUT - RESUSCITATING TAXPAYERS WITH BUYER'S REMORSE!
Coronavirus-Related Retirement Plan Distributions, MPPPs, and Governmental 401(a) Plans
Blakes Continuity Podcast: COVID-19: The Regulatory Impact on Pensions
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Plan Administrators’ 2019 Year-End Checklist
Many companies are scrambling to quickly assess how to reduce the business impact of the upheaval to U.S. manufacturing and trading with the recent onslaught of tariffs threatened or imposed by the United States and the...more
On April 3, 2025, the U.S. Department of Labor (the “DOL”) issued Field Assistance Bulletin 2025-02 (the “Bulletin”), clarifying the annual funding notice requirements applicable to defined benefit pension plans under section...more
A New York Appellate court affirmed a dismissal of a fiduciary breach claim against the New York City Employees’ Retirement System, Teachers’ Retirement System of the City of New York, and Board of Education Retirement System...more
SECURE 2.0 introduced many changes for retirement plans, including updated disclosure requirements for a defined benefit plan’s annual funding notice (AFN). These updated AFN disclosure requirements apply for all plan years...more
As 2024 comes to an end, we are pleased to present our traditional End-of-Year Plan Sponsor “To Do” Lists. This year, we present our “To Do” Lists in four separate SW Benefits Updates. Part 1 addressed health and welfare plan...more
Administrators of governmental plans and church plans that are not subject to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) should review the following actions to be taken before the end of 2024 and address what...more
On November 1, 2024, the 2025 calendar year cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) to the contribution and compensation limits for tax-qualified retirement plans were released by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in Notice...more
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) insures most private sector (i.e., non-governmental) defined benefit pension plans. The Plan Administrator of each pension plan covered under ERISA is required to annually file...more
In a defined benefit plan, participants usually accrue a monthly benefit based on a formula that typically considers their last three years’ salary before retirement and years of service with their employer. For example, the...more
As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), it is important to reflect on the impact this legislation has had on private sector employee benefit plans such as...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
The June Monthly Minute highlights recent DOL guidance on annuity provider selection for defined benefit plans and IRS Q&As that provide details on SECURE 2.0’s optional emergency and domestic abuse victim distributions for...more
On this episode of Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion, host Brydon DeWitt discusses a recent ERISA class action case, Lewandowski v. Johnson & Johnson et al., that is a wake-up call for plan fiduciaries managing health and...more
They say that you shouldn’t sweat the small stuff. As a kid from Brooklyn, I do sweat the small stuff. When they say that you shouldn’t sweat the small stuff, they mean that you should not focus your energy on things that...more
In Thole v. U.S. Bank, N.A., 140 S Ct. 1615 (2020), the Supreme Court, in a five to four decision authored by Justice Kavanaugh, held that participants in an ERISA defined benefit pension plan did not have standing under...more
Acknowledging uncommon market conditions, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) announced Technical Update Number 23-1 (the Update), which provides a one-time waiver of certain reporting requirements for some...more
The Department of Labor (DOL) announced that it has finalized, together with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation (PBGC), the third and final round of revisions to the Form 5500 Annual...more
The SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 (SECURE 2.0) provides welcome relief to private sector single employer sponsors of defined benefit pension plans (Pension Plan(s)). Effective for plan years beginning on and after January 1, 2024,...more
As part of our ongoing series on SECURE 2.0, this post discusses three significant changes to corrections of common retirement plan errors: (1) New rules for correcting overpayments, (2) expansion of the Self-Correction...more
Following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Hughes v. Northwestern University, courts around the country continue to articulate the pleading requirements for a breach of duty of prudence claim under the Employee Retirement...more
Current volatile market conditions and increasing interest rates are causing defined-benefit plan administrators and sponsors to consider purchasing annuity contracts (often called “terminal funding annuities”) to fund...more
On Friday, July 8, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued its decision in United Mine Workers of America 1974 Pension Plan v. Energy West Mining Company, joining the Sixth Circuit in holding that the...more
On July 7, 2022, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), the independent federal corporation that insures private-sector defined benefit plans under Title IV of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974...more
The closure of the Studebaker-Packard Corporation car manufacturing plant in 1963 was a major catalyst leading into the enactment of the Employee Retirement Income Savings Act of 1974 (“ERISA.”) ...more
Many traditional defined benefit plans, such as final average pay plans, offer a lump sum distribution as an optional form of benefit. The amount of the lump sum distribution is sensitive to the applicable interest rate...more