Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation Blog

The View from Proskauer on Developments in the World of Employee Benefits, Executive Compensation & ERISA Litigation

Tag Archives: Fiduciary-Exception

Best Practices in Administering Benefit Claims #7 – Understanding Attorney-Client Privilege in the Benefits Claims Process

When a plan administrator is attending to a benefit claim and thinks it is time to call in an attorney, are those discussions privileged and protected from disclosure to claimants?  In this week’s blog, we take a look at some of those communications between attorneys and plan administrators and examine whether or not they are … Continue Reading

Life Insurer Compelled to Produce Attorney-Client Communications

A federal district court in Ohio concluded that internal communications between a plan administrator and in-house counsel about a beneficiary’s first-level benefit claim remained protected by the attorney-client privilege, and that ERISA’s fiduciary exception to the attorney client privilege did not apply. In so ruling, the court explained that once the beneficiary’s counsel submitted a … Continue Reading

View From Proskauer: ERISA Plan Fiduciaries—Are Your Conversations With Counsel Privileged?

  It is generally understood that communications between clients and lawyers are privileged and that the substance of those conversations may not be divulged to third parties except in the rarest of circumstances.  In the employee benefits world, however, plan sponsors and fiduciaries are often surprised to learn that this cardinal rule does not always … Continue Reading

Are Your Conversations Privileged under ERISA?

Under ERISA, plan participants and beneficiaries have the right to obtain information pertaining to their benefit entitlements and the operation of the plans in which they participate. Sometimes these rights compromise the protections of the attorney-client privilege. Under the fiduciary exception, “an employer acting in the capacity of ERISA fiduciary is disabled from asserting the … Continue Reading
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