Employee Benefits/ERISA/Executive Compensation

Our employee benefits attorneys—many with government experience and all able to identify creative solutions for client issues—address complex tax, Title I (fiduciary), Title IV (plan termination and withdrawal liability), transaction, and legislative matters. 

Our clients include large and mid-sized employers, entities that sponsor qualified plans, trade associations, state and local government plans (including the largest public pension plan in the nation), financial institutions, and a range of tax-exempt organizations.

We regularly represent clients before the IRS and the Department of Labor on requests for advisory opinions, information letters, and rulings and with respect to audits.  We keep clients aware of ongoing developments in Washington, DC through client memoranda.

ERISA
Our tax attorneys who focus on the benefits practice have the added resource of one of the nation’s preeminent ERISA practices.  Our coordination with our ERISA colleagues, who often counsel large financial institutions and other investment advisers, gives us a wide variety of insight into practice and legal issues involving plan distribution rules and disclosure issues. 

The exposure we have to the work of our litigation attorneys not only assures our clients effective representation in court, but also allows us to bring practical considerations to bear with respect to avoidance of potential liability and exposure on planning matters. 

Representative Matters

IRS Compliance Programs

• Represented two large financial institutions that sponsored prototype plans in separate representations before the IRS in compliance procedures necessary to correct prior legal and administrative failures.
• Represented tax-exempt employer that had numerous operational failures in its 403(b) plan. We significantly reduced the applicable penalties and then reworked and redrafted the client’s future benefits program.

Audits

• Assisted several clients in audits and reviews of executive compensation and ESOPs at both the IRS and the Labor Department; in one case, obtained a legislative solution to satisfy the Labor Department.

Executive Compensation 

• Revised numerous clients’ executive compensation programs and documents to comply with Section 409A of the Code, including a thorough review of two clients’ plans in connection with a merger and sale. 

Operations 

• Addressed vesting and distribution issues for a state pension fund, and reviewed state statutes to ensure that they complied with federal tax law.
• Revised numerous 401(k) plans to adopt safe harbor formula and Roth accounts.
• Examined the effect of an employer’s rehiring former employees on the employer’s pension and health insurance plans. 

Severance and Claims Issues

• Reviewed and reworked severance arrangements for a tax-exempt client, including negotiating severance agreements with prior participants.

Noteworthy

• Ranked, Chambers USA 2010, America’s Leading Lawyers
• Recommended by Legal 500 US 2010

Select News & Events

• Steptoe Receives 13 Practice, 45 Individual Mentions in Legal 500 United States 2011
• Daily Tax Report Quotes Paul Ondrasik on Disclosure Rule's Impact on Litigation
• Anne Moran in Employee Relations Law Journal article "Supreme Court Rules on Age Discrimination and Early Retirement Eligibility"
• Best Lawyers in America 2007 Lists Steptoe Attorneys
• Catherine Wilkinson Speaks at Tax Executive Institute’s 60th Midyear Conference
• Patrick Menasco Speaks on Panel about Current Issues in Defined Contribution Plan Arena
• Annual Employment Law Update: What In-House Counsel and HR Executives Need to Know
• Codification of Economic Substance Doctrine - Is It an Idea Whose Time has Come and Gone?

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More Seminars & Events »

Publications

• Explaining Plan Changes: Lessons from the Supreme Court in CIGNA v. Amara
  Winter 2011, Employee Relations Law Journal, Vol. 37, No. 3
• Terminating 403(b) Arrangements : IRS Guidance Answers Some Questions, Avoids Others
  September 2011, Employee Relations Law Journal
• 2010 Arizona Tax Update
• The HEART Act: Additional Rules and Opportunities for Plans to Provide Benefits for Employees in Military Service
  Employee Relations Law Journal, Vol. 36, No.3, Winter 2010

More Publications »