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[Guidance Overview]
Supreme Court Will Hear Xerox Pension Offset Case
Excerpt: "The US Supreme Court has granted certiorari in an ERISA case that raises issues on (1) the extent to which a district court must defer to the views of an ERISA plan administrator and (2) the appropriate scope of appellate review. This case will be argued in the fall. Conkright v. Frommert (Certiorari granted 06/29/2009)." (LawMemo Employment Law Blog)


General Motors Using Huge Pension Fund in Way It Never Intended
Excerpt: "For now, the pension payments to its younger 'retirees,' part of a deal G.M. negotiated with the United Automobile Workers union in 2007, allow the company to drastically shrink its work force without having to come up with the cash to pay severance. The payments also relieve some of the burden on social service programs in the countless factory towns and counties around the country with large numbers of G.M.'s newly jobless. 'G.M. basically raided the pension plan, by having a lot of these severance benefits paid through it,' said Douglas J. Elliott, a fellow with the Brookings Institution who specializes in financial institutions and policy. What G.M. has done is perfectly legal. Nor is this the first time an employer has used a pension fund to pay for pruning its ranks." (The New York Times; free registration required)


Debate: Should All Advisors Be Required to Meet the Fiduciary Standard, or Should Everyone Fall Under a Suitability Standard
Excerpt: "At the heart of this debate lies a contentious word: fiduciary. In essence it means that advisors who fall under the fiduciary standard, namely investment advisors who run a fee-based business, must always put clients' interests before of their own. This generally means recommending the lowest-priced product that meets the client's needs and disclosing all conflicts of interest. On the other hand, broker-dealer registered representatives must meet a 'suitability' standard of care." (On Wall Street and SourceMedia, Inc.)


Worker-Owners Sue Top Leaders at the Antioch Co.
Excerpt: "Current and former employees who lost millions when scrapbooking pioneer Creative Memories filed for bankrup.tcy protection are suing leaders of their former employer and its parent company. The current and former employees contend that when St. Cloud-based Creative Memories and its parent The Antioch Co. decided to become 100 percent employee-owned, its top leaders and other representatives did so with conflicts of interest and wanted only to avoid taxes and retain personal profit and control. These decisions, along with financial incentives for employees to cash in their stock, eventually led Antioch and Creative Memories to file Chapter 11 bankrup.tcy in November. The current and former workers' retirement accounts became worthless as a result, they claim in two recently filed lawsuits. Although each lawsuit makes similar accusations, plaintiffs in the two cases argue different points and seek different outcomes." (St. Cloud Times)


Bill with Retirement Plan Fee Disclosure, Investment Advice Rules Advances
Excerpt: "Specifically, the bill would require the following: Fees would have to be disclosed by 401(k) plans as a single figure in a worker's quarterly statement. Service providers and plan administrators would have to disclose fees to plan sponsors, broken into four categories: 1) administrative fees; 2) investment management fees; 3) transaction fees; and 4) other fees. Plan administrators would be obliged to provide investment information to participants, including information about risks, returns and investment goals." (Thompson Publishing Group)


New Research Reveals Drivers Impacting Retirement Plan Fees
Excerpt: "The Defined Contribution/401(k) Fee Study research report, conducted by Deloitte and sponsored by the Investment Company Institute (ICI), looks at total fees charged across a broad sample of defined contribution plans with a range of plan sizes, service levels, investment offerings, service providers, and fee structures. This study of 130 plans reveals that lower fees are closely related to a number of factors, including the size of the plan, higher contribution rates by employers and employees, and greater use of automatic enrollment." (Deloitte Development LLC)


Pension Funding Proposals Being Considered
Excerpt: "Comprehensive funding relief for defined benefit pension plans is on the radar screen. A discussion draft was released this week in the House of Representatives, and certain proposals are included in the 401(k) Fair Disclosure Bill that was favorably reported this week by the House Education and Labor Committee." (Deloitte via BenefitsLink.com)


Defined Benefit Funding Relief at Risk Over an Advice Provision
Excerpt: "A House committee yanked a pension bill provision safeguarding existing investment advice arrangements for DC plans -- jeopardizing employer support for a package that also provides critical funding relief for DB plans. At the 11th hour, Democrats on the House Education and Labor Committee deleted the provision that would have made clear the legislation would not pre-empt existing investment advice arrangements that rely on the Department of Labor's SunAmerica advisory opinion or other DOL advice exemptions." (Pensions & Investments)

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Links to Items on Executive Comp, Benefits in General

[Guidance Overview]
New TARP Executive Compensation Rules: Who's Covered
Excerpt: "This Alert focuses on two fundamental threshold questions: (1) which entities and programs are generally covered by the executive compensation standards under TARP; and (2) which TARP requirements apply to which entities, and when do covered entities escape such coverage?" (K&L Gates LLP)


Section 457A Plan Sponsors Face June 30 Deferred Compensation Vesting Decision
Excerpt: "Sponsors of nonqualified deferred compensation (NQDC) plans subject to Section 457A must act by June 30 to take advantage of a transition rule for certain NQDC amounts vesting after Dec. 31, 2008. When 457A applies, NQDC provided to US taxpayers employed by foreign companies is taxable at vesting -- or later in some cases, with even harsher results. Sponsors can soften the blow for some NQDC recipients by retroactively accelerating vesting to a date before Jan. 1, 2009. Employers opting to do so must amend plans by June 30 and apply the changes consistently to all employees in similar plans." (Mercer LLC)


2009 Employee Benefits Survey Report
Excerpt: "SHRM's 2009 Employee Benefits survey report provides comprehensive information about the types of benefits U.S. employers offer to their employees. In 2009, 274 benefits were explored, covering the areas of health care and welfare benefits, preventive health and wellness benefits, financial and compensation benefits, paid time off benefits, family-friendly benefits, flexible working benefits, personal services benefits, housing and relocation benefits, and business travel benefits. The report breaks the benefits down by organization staff size and organization sector and covers trends in benefits offerings over the last five years." (Society for Human Resource Management)


Concerns Voiced About Integration of Watson Wyatt and Towers Perrin
Excerpt: "Experts say the creation of such a large company will end up diluting the services that clients get -- at least in the short term. The combined company's new president says processes are in place to make the integration go 'as smoothly as possible.'" (Workforce Management; free registration required)


DOL Set to Begin Transition to Form 5500 E-Filing on July 1
Excerpt: "As the transition to EFAST2 -- the second-generation e-filing system for Form 5500 -- gets underway, benefit plan sponsors and other filers could see an immediate impact: As of July 1, the Department of Labor (DOL) will eliminate an informal correction process that has allowed filers 30 to 60 days to correct deficiencies in their reports before substantive review begins. Starting with reporting for the 2009 plan year, DOL generally will accept only electronically filed Form 5500 annual reports for retirement, health and welfare plans." (Mercer LLC)


Philadelphia Confronts the Cost of Employee Benefits
Excerpt: "To help inform the public discussion, the Philadelphia Research Initiative, with assistance from the Pew Center on the States, sought to update the situation regarding pension and health-care conditions in Philadelphia and the comparison cities, based on interviews with officials as well as the latest available documents. We reviewed policy changes and proposals that have arisen regarding Philadelphia over the past year and a half. We interviewed two dozen experts on employee benefits from across the spectrum, and three of the four major unions that represent Philadelphia city workers provided varying amounts of information." (The Pew Charitable Trusts)

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Webcasts and Conferences

2009 Retirement Research Consortium (RRC) Conference
in District of Columbia on August 10, 2009
presented by Center for Retirement Research at Boston College

Fiduciary Best Practices: A Guide for Small Employers
in Washington on July 8, 2009
presented by Spectrum Pension Consultants, Inc.

( Click to post your webcast or conference )

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Press Releases

PBGC Assumes Pension Plans at Precision Custom Components LLC
Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC)

PBGC Protects Pensions at Sencorp
Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC)

BeneTrac Celebrates Decade of Success, Million Member Milestone for Online Benefits Management Platform
BeneTrac

The SPARK Institute Releases Three New 403(b) Plans Best Practices Documents
The SPARK Institute

Fringe Benefit Group Launches New Web Sites Providing Educational Resources for Government Contractors Bidding on Economic Stimulus Projects
Fringe Benefit Group

( Click to post your press release )

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Employee Benefits Jobs

Pension Administrator
for AKT Retirement Plan Services LP
in CA

Manager - Benefits
for Energy East
in NY

Controller
for Multi-employer Benefit Fund
in NY

Defined Contribution Client Manager
for Markley Actuarial Services, Inc.
in PA

( Click to post your job opening | View all jobs | RSS feed of all jobs )

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Handy Links:

• View Today's Active Message Threads
• Using the Web for Employee Benefits Research (hypertext article)
• Employee Benefits Library

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