Author | Bonnie Treichel The Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) Section 402(a) outlines the essential requirements for the establishment and maintenance of employee benefit plans, including the requirement to identify a person or entity who will be responsible for…
Author | Bonnie Treichel Among the many required disclosures of retirement plans, there are two regarding fees. The Department of Labor (DOL) issued regulations for fee disclosures to ensure that there is transparency for plan fiduciaries and participants regarding retirement…
Author | Bonnie Treichel In September 2024, the Department of Labor (DOL) issued “new” guidance for plan sponsors, plan fiduciaries, recordkeepers, and plan participants on best practices for maintaining cybersecurity, including tips on how to protect the retirement benefits of…
Author | Bonnie Treichel Roughly a year ago, a pair of attorneys located in Pasadena, California launched the first of what would become a series of lawsuits targeting the use of plan forfeitures to offset employer contributions as a breach…
Author | Bonnie Treichel SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 (SECURE 2.0) has dozens of optional provisions. One of those provisions permits employers with a 401(k), 403(b), governmental 457(b), or SIMPLE IRA plan to provide matching contributions based on student loan…
Author | Bonnie Treichel Plan sponsors have long been on notice that they have a responsibility to ensure that the services provided to their retirement plan – and the fees paid for those services – are reasonable. Fee disclosure regulations under Section…
Author | Bonnie Treichel As of June 28, courts will no longer be required to defer to the judgement of the regulatory agencies in terms of applying and interpreting ambiguous laws. This is the outcome of the Supreme Court case…
Author | Bonnie Treichel The total plan assets include all dollars in the retirement plan, but as the plan sponsor, do you have a good handle on all those dollars? Sometimes plan sponsors forget about the small dollar accounts such…
Author | Bonnie Treichel Retirement plans involve a lot of rules. One set of rules, involving nondiscrimination testing, is meant to ensure highly compensated employees (including company owners) don’t unfairly receive more contributions into the retirement plan when compared to…
Author | Bonnie Treichel As a follow-up to its proposal from October 31, 2023, the Department of Labor (DOL) announced updates to the investment advice fiduciary regulation (formally known as the Retirement Security Rule) on April 23, 2024. This regulation…
