ERISA

Past 3 Months

From the program: ERISA: The Evolving World 2013

Released on: Aug. 20, 2013

A working knowledge of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act’s (ERISA) framework is crucial for lawyers, HR practitioners and other professionals in the area of employee benefits and compensation planning. Our experienced faculty of leading practitioners will discuss a broad array of topics, including the basic regulatory framework, the types of plans covered, the requirements for intended tax treatment, fiduciary responsibilities and other ...

Recorded on: Aug. 8, 2013

ANDREW L. ORINGER: I'd just like to spend maybe 5, 10, minutes doing my little cheerleading thing. I really am a big fan of this area and practicing in it. And I'd like to give my perspective on what the area is about. So first, if you go back enough years, to maybe the late '70s or the early '80s, what our practice was about was we really spent our time doing technical tax qualification issues under the Internal Revenue Code. We were looking at ...

Recorded on: Aug. 8, 2013

ANDREW L. ORINGER: OK. Welcome back-- to some of you. As we sort of wind down here, this is a panel-- sort of a multifaceted panel. The different parts of this panel don't really integrate tightly. To me, this is really interesting and I think very valuable because these are sort of the other things, or the sub-specialties that ERISA lawyers deal with. And I think it's really important to try to, almost as a survey matter, to go through them and ...

Recorded on: Aug. 8, 2013

ANDREW ORINGER: So we're going to pick up now with another area that is not necessarily technically ERISA, but clearly has become an area that ERISA lawyers focus on extensively. And we talked a little bit at the very beginning of the first session how the practice has moved away from technical code qualification into things like executive compensation and investment management while still worrying about the technical rules. ERISA does apply to various ...

Recorded on: Aug. 8, 2013

ANDREW L. ORINGER: OK, so welcome back. As I said before the break, we're going to head into some procedural matters to take us through the end of the day. You've had a lot of information thus far, and hopefully you're absorbing that. Our next speaker is my dear friend and former colleague, Ken Raskin. We were together at White & Case, and he is now at King & Spalding. We've actually both moved on. He is the partner and chair of the employee ...

Recorded on: Aug. 8, 2013

ANDREW L. GAINES: All right. We're going to get started in the next segment of the program. I just want to emphasize that a lot of the material that was presented in the first segment of the program is just that. It's an overview. And they'll be many detailed discussions regarding all the things that were presented in that segment throughout the course of the next two days. In particular, Rob was talking about some pretty esoteric stuff in the defined ...

Recorded on: Aug. 8, 2013

ANDREW L. ORINGER: OK, Thank you. Welcome back. Hope everyone had a nice lunch. We're going to pick up now with 401(k) plans. I think this is an extremely important presentation as we sort of talked about earlier. I think that American retirement policy has really gone from the traditional classic defined benefit plan to now focusing on, oddly enough, the employee funded 401(k) plan with no guarantee. And that is the center. And that all worked really ...

Recorded on: Aug. 8, 2013

ANDREW ORINGER: We're going to move on to a discussion or mergers and acquisitions. This is an area that I think, as we've mentioned, has really evolved in terms of the ERISA practice. I told the anecdote, which I'll tell in abbreviated form now, where I was told by a corporate colleague of mine that he would know when I was successful on an M&A transaction when he didn't know that I was on the M&A transaction. And what he meant by that was ...

Recorded on: Aug. 8, 2013

ANDREW ORINGER: OK, we're going to move on now to a panel and a topic that I really like. I think it is an area that is not avoided but missed by too many non litigation ERISA counselors and practitioners. And that is the area of ERISA litigation. I've always taken a real interest in the cases. I just like them, I like the area, I like reading what judges have to say, I like listening to litigators talk about the cases. It's a very different perspective. ...

Recorded on: Aug. 8, 2013

ANDREW L. ORINGER: OK, so we're now going to go into the last hour, which is going to have two presentations. The first, as I mentioned a moment ago, is I think just a really, hopefully interesting presentation for you all, which is we've talked a little bit about the evolving role of the ERISA lawyer. Which from my perspective is really the big firm evolving role. We talked about how there are other roles. We talked about how there are other kinds ...

Recorded on: Aug. 8, 2013

ANDREW L. ORINGER: OK, so welcome back, everybody, to the second day. Yesterday, I think that we tried to give you an understanding of a lot of the basic principles that relate to what we do here in the benefits world, the ERISA world. Today, we're going to try to really deal with issues around the edges. We're going to delve into certain aspects. We're going to delve into mergers and acquisitions. We're going to delve into, really, a slightly different ...

Released on: Aug. 14, 2013

Taken from the briefing Leveraged Buyouts: A Discussion with the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation recorded July, 2013.The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation recently announced that it will become more aggressive in leverage buyout transactions involving underfunded pension plans.  In a similar vein, in April, the PBGC initiated proceedings to terminate a pension plan in connection with Compagnie de Saint-Gobain’s sale of its U.S. metal ...

Recorded on: Aug. 14, 2013

AMY: It's my pleasure to turn this briefing over to Larry Kagney. Larry, are you there? LAWRENCE K. CAGNEY: Yes, I am, Amy. Sorry. We have a lot to discuss. We have two senior executives here from the PBGC who are going to enlighten us on developments in the PBGC's early warning program, and how they're dealing with a number of issues, particularly leveraged buyout transactions. In the materials, you likely have seen that there is a pension investment ...

From the program: California Employment Law Update 2013

Released on: Sep. 24, 2013

PLI’s California Employment Law Update addresses the issues confronted by employment law advisers, litigators and human resources management and professionals, with particular emphasis on California State law considerations. This program combines a comprehensive review of case law and regulatory developments, an in-depth analysis of emerging issues, and practical guidance about best practices to maximize employment law compliance, mitigate legal risk ...