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Neil V. Shah is an associate in the Labor & Employment Law Department and a member of the Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation Group, where he focuses on ERISA litigation.

Neil represents plan sponsors, trustees, and other fiduciaries in ERISA class actions for breach of fiduciary duty arising out of investment losses and prohibited transactions, as well as Department of Labor and other governmental and internal investigations.  Neil also counsels both employers and multiemployer funds regarding the assessment and collection of delinquent contributions and withdrawal liability.

Prior to joining Proskauer, Neil was an associate at a large regional firm, where he litigated individual and class actions involving challenges to insurer claims adjudication procedures under ERISA, fraud recoveries against healthcare providers, and claims for benefits.

Neil has authored several articles, including those published in the New Jersey Law Journal and Bloomberg National Affairs. He is also a frequent contributor to Proskauer’s Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation Blog.

In Svenhard’s Swedish Bakery v. United States Bakery, Bk. No. 19-15277, 2023 WL 5541420 (9th Cir. Aug. 29, 2023), the Ninth Circuit held that a settlement agreement that resolved an employer’s withdrawal liability to a multiemployer pension fund was not an executory contract that could be assumed and assigned to a third-party when that employer subsequently filed for bankruptcy.  The decision is instructive for multiemployer funds and employers that negotiate settlement agreements to resolve these types of liabilities.

In Su v. Fensler, No. 22-cv-01030, 2023 WL 5152640 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 10, 2023), the court granted the Department of Labor’s motion for a preliminary injunction to replace with an independent fiduciary the trustees of the United Employee Benefit Fund, who are accused of breaching their fiduciary duties by using Fund assets to engage

In Holland v. Murray, No. 21-cv-567, 2023 WL 2645708 (D.D.C. Mar. 27, 2023), the court held that financial support provided by Congress to a multiemployer pension plan under the Bipartisan American Miners Act (“BAMA”) did not divest the plan of Article III standing to pursue the withdrawal liability it was owed.

In Central States v. Wingra, No. 21-cv-3684, 2023 WL 199360 (N.D. Ill. Jan. 17, 2023), the district court held that an employer expelled from a multiemployer pension plan may not owe withdrawal liability because the permanent cessation of the employer’s obligation to contribute was not voluntary.  While the court subsequently limited the decision as being for discovery purposes only (see Central States v. Wingra, No. 21-cv-3684 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 17, 2023)), the court allowed the employer to assert its challenge in the district court, rather than in arbitration, because the employer plausibly alleged that its expulsion from the plan was in bad faith.

In Kanefsky v. Ford Motor Co. Gen. Ret. Plan, No. 22-cv-2259, 10548 U.S. Dist. 2023 WL 186800 (E.D. Mich. Jan. 13, 2023), the court granted a motion to dismiss a pension plan participant’s claim that the plan was equitably estopped from recouping overpaid plan benefits.  Upon termination of his employment, the participant requested and

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals recently issued a withdrawal liability decision of which both multiemployer pension plans and their contributing employers should be aware.  Specifically, in National Retirement Fund v. Metz Culinary Management, Inc., No. 17-1211, 2020 WL 20524 (Jan. 2, 2020), the Second Circuit held that the interest rate used to calculate

The Seventh Circuit held that a multiemployer pension fund’s withdrawal liability claim was barred by the six-year statute of limitations applicable to claims under the Multiemployer Pension Plan Amendments Act (MPPAA).  After the employer failed to make several quarterly withdrawal liability payments, the fund declared the employer to be in default, accelerated its withdrawal liability,

The Fifth Circuit concluded that a plan’s three-year contractual limitations period began to accrue when a beneficiary received a letter in 2008 that prominently displayed on the first page the monthly earnings used to calculate his long term disability benefits.  The Court held that the claim was time-barred because the beneficiary failed to bring his

A New York federal district court concluded that a defined benefit plan participant lacked standing to seek relief on behalf of plans other than the one in which he was a participant. In this case, plaintiff claimed that defendants breached ERISA fiduciary duties and engaged in prohibited transactions by charging undisclosed markups for securities trades.

The Tenth Circuit upheld a claims administrator’s decision denying a claim for residential mental health treatment as not medically necessary. In so holding, the Court rejected plaintiff’s argument that the claims administrator’s refusal to produce data on its historical denial rates for mental health treatment warranted a de novo review because that information was not