Pension & Welfare Plans
Qualified Plans
The firm's employee benefits attorneys devote a significant amount of their time to advising clients in designing, establishing and administering all types of qualified retirement plans, including defined benefit, cash balance, profit sharing, 401(k) and employee stock ownership plans. The firm's services include drafting the plan and trust documents to meet both clients' specific needs and the requirements of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 ("ERISA"), the Internal Revenue Code and securities laws, providing guidance on matters such as the deductibility of contributions to and the taxation of distributions from retirement plans, advising on employee communication matters and analyzing and addressing retirement plan issues which arise in connection with mergers and acquisitions, corporate spin-offs or reductions in force, and fiduciary matters such as trust management and avoiding prohibited transactions.
Welfare Plans
An important aspect of most employee benefit programs is the provision of welfare benefit coverage to employees, including insured and self-funded group health, cafeteria, life, disability, severance and other welfare plans as well as health reimbursement arrangements and health savings accounts. The firm advises clients with respect to maximizing tax deductions attributable to the costs of such coverage, complying with the nondiscrimination rules applicable to welfare plans, and assisting in all matters relating to establishing and maintaining such plans.
The last several years has seen a significant growth in the federal regulation of welfare plans. Although ERISA established certain reporting and fiduciary requirements, recent legislation has increasingly created substantive benefit obligations. The first example of this was COBRA, but the more recent HIPAA legislation has significantly increased the requirements for health plans, with limitations on pre-existing conditions, special enrollment periods and nondiscrimination standards. The latest development under HIPAA has been the issuance of very complex privacy regulations. Vedder Price has the capabilities to assist in all aspects of these requirements.
|
|
Show all attorneys in this practice
|
|
|
