PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - ERISA Forfeiture Litigation
Background - In a wave of class-action litigation beginning around 2023, plaintiffs have alleged violations of fiduciary duties under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) and prohibited transaction rules in...more
On July 9th, the Secretary of Labor filed an amicus brief with the Ninth Circuit relating to the appeal of Hutchins v. HP, Inc. In that case, a participant claimed that forfeitures should have been used to offset plan...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
Last year, we alerted you to the filing of several class action lawsuits alleging that plan fiduciaries violated their duties of prudence and loyalty under Title I of ERISA by applying forfeitures to reduce employer...more
The Employee Retirement Income Security Act ("ERISA") plaintiffs' bar has found a new way to allege that 401(k) plan sponsors have breached their fiduciary duty....more
A handful of new ERISA litigation cases (including McManus v. Clorox Co., N.D Cal. No. 4:23-cv-05325) are taking aim at forfeiture accounts and trying to pull them into the never-ending list of ways in which retirement plan...more
Use of Forfeitures for Safe Harbor Contributions, QNECS and QMACS - The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recently issued final regulations allowing forfeitures in 401(k) plans to be used to fund safe harbor contributions,...more
Since at least 2010, the IRS has publicly stated that forfeitures must be used by the end of the plan year in which the forfeiture occurred, or as soon as possible thereafter. Some IRS pre-approved prototype or volume...more
Editor's Overview - In this month’s newsletter, our colleagues focus on two sets of legislative updates. First is a discussion of the IRS’s proposed Treasury Regulations prescribing rules under Section 457 of the...more
A Department of Labor (“DOL”) official recently disclosed a new DOL investigation initiative focusing on the adequacy of defined benefit plan procedures to locate and pay out benefits to terminated vested participants. The...more