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Justin S. Alex is a partner and a member of the Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation Group.

Justin advises private and public companies on all aspects of their employee benefits and executive compensation arrangements and plans.

He has particular experience in the sports industry, including employment agreements for executives at the highest levels in professional sports and the benefits and compensation aspects of numerous transactions, such as the purchase or sale of the Buffalo Bills, Carolina Panthers, Denver Broncos, Miami Marlins, Real Salt Lake, OL Reign, Professional Hockey Federation, the Licensed Sports Group Unit of VF Corporation, Full Swing Golf, and ADPRO Sports and the merger of the USFL and XFL.

In addition to Justin's general benefits and compensation practice, he spends a significant portion of his time advising employers and financial sponsors with respect to pension liabilities. He also advises the trustees of collectively bargained single-employer and multiemployer plans with respect to their administration, governance, and legal compliance.

Prior to joining Proskauer, Justin was an attorney in the Office of Chief Counsel at the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), where he gained significant experience with pension termination and underfunding issues. He also represented the PBGC in corporate bankruptcies and federal court litigation.

Justin is the co-editor of Proskauer’s Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation Blog and the Hiring Partner for Proskauer’s Washington office. He also serves on the Board of the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs.

On September 26, 2022, the IRS released IRS Notice 2022-45, which corrected a potential oversight in IRS Notice 2022-33, discussed in detail hereNotice 2022-33 had extended the deadline to adopt certain retirement and savings plan amendments required by the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act of 2019 (“SECURE Act

On July 8, 2022, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (“PBGC”) published its much anticipated final rule on the special financial assistance (“SFA”) available to certain troubled multiemployer plans under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (“ARPA”).

As we previously described in our client alert, ARPA provided for cash payments from the PBGC to

On January 31, 2022, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the lower court’s finding that surcharges imposed by the Pension Protection Act (“PPA”) are excluded from the determination of an employer’s “highest contribution rate” for withdrawal liability payment calculations. While the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act (“MPRA”) explicitly excluded surcharges that accrued after 2014 from such calculations, this

proskauer benefits brief podcastThis episode is the final installment of our three-part series on a new special financial assistance program created by the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 for troubled multiemployer plans and the interim guidance issued by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation regarding the program. Be sure to listen as Rob Projansky and Justin Alex cover the special rules that apply to plans that receive the assistance and other details including how the program impacts withdrawal liability for employers.


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proskauer benefits brief podcastThis episode of The Proskauer Benefits Brief is the second of our three-part series analyzing the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) guidance on the new special financial assistance program for troubled multiemployer pension plans that was created by the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).  Tune in as Rob Projansky and Justin Alex dig into more details on the guidance and the program.


 Listen to the podcast

proskauer benefits brief podcastThis episode of The Proskauer Benefits Brief is the first of our three-part series analyzing the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) guidance on the new special financial assistance program for troubled multiemployer pension plans that was created by the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).  In this initial episode, partner Rob Projansky and senior counsel Justin Alex cover the basic contours of the program.


 Listen to the podcast

As a follow up to our previous alert on the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, we have summarized the key aspects of the recently released PBGC and IRS guidance on the new Special Financial Assistance Program for troubled multiemployer pension plans in our latest client alert, which can be found here.

Today, the House of Representatives passed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (the “ARPA”). The ARPA has already been approved by the Senate and is expected to be quickly signed into law by President Biden. We recently published a client alert addressing Title IX, Subtitle H of the new legislation, which includes

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (“PBGC”) issued a final rule on January 7, 2021 that impacts the calculation of withdrawal liability by multiemployer pension plans in endangered or critical status. The final rule applies to withdrawals from multiemployer plans that occur in plan years beginning on or after February 8, 2021.

The final rule contains

In late September, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (the “PBGC”) published Press Release 20-04 and issued Technical Update 20-2 providing flexibility in the calculation of variable-rate premiums for plan sponsors who take advantage of extended pension contribution deadlines for 2020—even in certain circumstances where the plan sponsor has already completed its PBGC premium filing.

The