Defined Benefit Plans

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ERISA Section 4010 requires a contributing sponsor of certain single-employer pension plans, as well as the sponsor’s controlled group members, to provide controlled group, financial, and actuarial information to the PBGC each year.  The requirement generally applies when one or more plans within a controlled group has a funding target attainment percentage for 4010 purposes…

As part of our ongoing series on SECURE 2.0, this post discusses three significant changes to corrections of common retirement plan errors: (1) New rules for correcting overpayments, (2) expansion of the Self-Correction Program under the IRS’s Employee Plans Compliance Resolution System (“EPCRS”) to cover most inadvertent errors, and (3) making permanent the current…

A hotly debated (and litigated) issue for multiemployer pension plans in recent years has been the appropriate interest rate to determine a multiemployer pension plan’s liabilities when calculating the plan’s underfunding for withdrawal liability purposes.  The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (the “PBGC”) is now poised to end the debate.  The PBGC proposes to allow multiemployer…

On April 10, 2020, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (the “PBGC”) announced that deadlines for upcoming premium payments and certain other required filings due from April 1, 2020 through July 14, 2020 will be extended to July 15, 2020 as further described below.

The PBGC’s announcement came a day after the Internal Revenue Service (the…

A recent Third Circuit decision reinforced the need for ERISA plaintiffs to plead injury-in-fact to establish Article III standing.  In Krauter v. Siemens Corp., No. 17-1662, 2018 WL 921542 (3d Cir. Feb. 16, 2018), the plaintiff was a beneficiary of four pension plans that had been sponsored by Siemens.  After the Plaintiff’s retirement, Siemens…

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (the “PBGC”) recently finalized its premium filing requirements for 2015.  In addition to higher premium rates and other more minor changes, plan sponsors are now required to report information about the number of former employees involved in certain risk transfer activities (i.e., annuity purchases and lump sum windows) that occurred at least sixty days prior to the premium filing date in the current premium payment year or during the prior premium payment year.   

The PBGC has recently initiated efforts to enhance retirement security for Americans by promoting lifetime income options (i.e., annuitized benefits).  As part of these efforts, as well as those of the IRS and U.S. Department of Labor, the PBGC issued final regulations regarding the treatment of rollovers from defined contribution plans to defined benefit plans for purposes of the PBGC’s statutory guarantees under Title IV of ERISA.  The PBGC regulations are intended “to encourage people to get lifetime income by removing barriers to moving their benefits from defined contribution plans to defined benefit plans.” The guidance also “removes the fear that the amounts rolled over would suffer under guarantee limits should [the] PBGC step in and pay benefits.”