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SEC efforts to tighten rules on the $2.56 trillion money market fund industry are on indefinite hold. Trade organizations representing the retirement plan and asset management industries wrote a joint letter to SEC Aug. 21 criticizing money market reforms on which the commission was slated to vote Aug. 29. The letter urged SEC not to […]
Twelve well-known U.S. financial services industry figures will meet Sept. 11 with the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission to discuss their “Fiduciary Declaration,” which will urge Congress and the agency to heighten protection for those receiving investment advice. The declaration, to be signed by Paul Volcker, John C. “Jack” Bogle, Sheila Bair and […]
A Connecticut-based fiduciary investment adviser agreed in a settlement to pay about $1.3 million to 13 pension plans to resolve alleged ERISA violations related to mutual fund fees the firm received. USI Advisors Inc. made investments in mutual funds on behalf of ERISA-covered defined benefit plan clients and received 12b-1 fees from those funds, according […]
Concerns are mounting in the United States about the increase in retirement plan “leakage” — hardship early withdrawals and loans being taken against such plans during tough economic times. As more Americans deplete their retirement savings to meet emergency expenses resulting from long-term unemployment, tightened credit or high medical expenses, policy makers are seeking ways […]
Non-federal governmental plans may omit language describing how participants can seek remedies under ERISA in notices to be given when the plan makes an adverse decision. Notices of adverse benefit determinations are required as part of health reform’s claims appeal and external review rules. Such plans need not include the language because ERISA remedies are […]
A company owner and another manager are not fiduciaries as defined by ERISA and the contributions they failed to make to their employees’ pension plans were not plan assets, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled. This decision supports the premise that individual company officials who serve only as conduits for employees’ payments to […]
The standard industry fare level rates that employers will use to calculate the value of trips taken aboard company aircraft during the second half of 2012 were issued Aug. 14 by the U.S. Department of Transportation. The rates have increased about 4 ½ percent from those that were in effect for the first half of […]
Compliance with the contraceptive coverage mandate under health reform is stayed until Aug. 1, 2013 for employers that fit into a slightly expanded enforcement safe harbor described by the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight (CCIIO) in an Aug. 15 memo. Reform’s preventive care mandate requires plans and insurers to cover a host of […]
Employers that pay advances, allowances or reimbursements to employees for work-related entertainment expenses — including taxpayers who, in turn, get reimbursed by their clients for such expenses — have until Oct. 30 to comment on a proposed regulation IRS published Aug. 1. The proposed rule clarifies who — among the employer, its client and an […]
Plan sponsors and participants both want to ensure better retirement savings but they often wonder which factor in the process matters most. A study from Putnam Institute suggests sticking with the obvious: The higher the deferral rate during an employee’s working life, the greater the long-term returns. Despite intense focus on fund performance in the […]