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Employees find 401(k)s and similar group retirement plans are found to be the most difficult benefits to understand, followed by health insurance and HSA/FSAs, according to a new financial wellness survey released by Four Seasons Financial Education (FSFE).
The IRS on Jan. 29 provided some long-awaited guidance on which midyear amendments to “safe harbor” 401(k) retirement plans it will allow — and which remain prohibited. The guidance, effective immediately, should put to rest years of confusion among practitioners over when they can adjust plans to reflect short-term changes without putting their plan’s qualification […]
Monitoring the performance of service providers, making required disclosures to participants and beneficiaries, keeping good records and filing reports with the government are just a few of the important functions a fiduciary must ensure are properly executed, an enforcement official at the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration unit told a group of […]
FedEx Corp. may have violated ERISA by not awarding pension death benefits to the same-sex spouse of an employee who died one week before the U.S. Supreme Court ended bans on gay marriage, although the company reasonably interpreted its plan’s limitation of benefits to opposite-sex spouses before the 2013 High Court ruling, a federal district […]
The U.S. Department of Labor laid the groundwork for states to run ERISA-covered auto-enrollment individual retirement accounts and multi-employer retirement plans for people without workplace savings options, issuing proposed rules and an interpretive bulletin for that purpose. The so-called open MEPs give employers that don’t want to offer their own 401(k) plan a way to join with other companies […]
Fiduciary status under ERISA “is not an all-or-nothing concept,” according to a recent federal district court ruling that found BP and its North American unit were not liable for their retirement plan employees’ breaches of fiduciary duty. The lawsuit arose from a BP company stock plan available as investment to plan participants that plunged in […]
By Todd Castleton Another recent court dispute among would-be beneficiaries highlights the options facing retirement plan administrators when distributing a deceased participant’s benefit. If two or more parties are claiming to be the rightful beneficiary of a deceased participant’s benefit, one option is to review all the facts and make a determination applying the plan’s terms through […]
A hospital company accused of using participant funds to pay “excessive fees” for retirement plan administration services agreed to a $32 million class-action settlement and extensive adjustments in the way it selects and reviews the plan’s portfolio. As more participant suits are filed accusing defined contribution plans of overpaying for investment and administration services, it’s […]
The U.S. Department of Labor on Oct. 21 reversed 2008 guidance that discouraged retirement plan fiduciaries and their investment advisers from considering environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors when choosing companies for their portfolios. The reversal, made through a new interpretive bulletin that reinstates 1994 guidance, recognizes a growing consensus that fiduciary duty may in […]
A novel approach to determining damages owed by an investment adviser to two defined contribution retirement plans in an ERISA fiduciary-duty breach was part of a decision including a $15 million reimbursement request handed down recently by a New York federal judge. Plan sponsors should note that the defendant, WPN Corp., was ordered by the […]