Employee Benefits

OVERVIEW

EXPERIENCE

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ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Helping you win the war for talent with strategic and compliant benefit programs.

Employee benefits are one of an employer’s primary tools to attract and retain talented employees, but employers face challenges on every front. With changes in health care reform, pension funding, and ERISA litigation, it gets harder each year to develop attractive and affordable benefit plans that fit your business goals. Employee benefits are an ever-increasing portion of an employer’s cost of overall compensation, eating up about a third of the budget. You need an experienced ally to help you comply with the onslaught of laws and regulations so you can effectively manage this complex and expensive area.

HOW WE HELP

Our team supports our clients with every aspect of their employee benefits needs—from designing, drafting, and implementing plans and agreements to counseling on operational compliance and fiduciary issues.

Our clients are local, regional, national, and multinational in scope and vary in size from mid-sized private companies to Fortune-ranked corporations in key industry sectors such as health care, consumer products, higher education, manufacturing, retail, transportation and environmental services, as well as boards of trustees of large multiemployer funds.

We offer broad geographic reach with deep expertise in the field, making us one of the largest and most comprehensive benefits departments among our peers. This enables us to lead and manage projects for major clients who have numerous operations and facilities, as well as provide personalized attention to day-to-day headaches.

OUR SERVICES

Retirement Plans. The entire spectrum of design, compliance, governance and operational issues related to all types of qualified and nonqualified retirement plans, including defined benefit and cash balance pension plans, 401(k) plans, profit-sharing plans and ESOPs.

Health and Welfare Benefit Plans. Benefit program design, communications, benefit claims and appeals, assessment of fiduciary obligations, health care reform, HIPAA privacy and security, consumer-driven health spending accounts, health reimbursement arrangements, flexible spending accounts, vendor agreements, retiree benefits, and voluntary employee beneficiary associations.

Multiemployer Plans. Plan set-up and design, legal compliance, plan investments, fiduciary responsibility, prohibited transactions, withdrawal liability, PPA funding issues and compliance, mergers and spinoffs, contractual relationships with service providers, benefit claims, collections and litigation in state and federal courts over withdrawal liability issues.

Executive and Equity Compensation. Including supplemental retirement plans, deferred compensation arrangements, executive employment and separation agreements, incentive programs, equity awards and ownership, as well as severance and change-in-control programs.

Fiduciary Governance and Institutional Investing. Counseling regarding fiduciary issues inherent in the governance structures of internal committees and their appointees, fee arrangements, claims and appeals, and investment monitoring obligations, as well as counseling plans, foundations and other institutional investors regarding their investments, compliance with fiduciary matters, and tax issues.

Benefit Solutions. Special projects such as internal procedural audits of administrative policies and practices, review of employee/participant communications, missing participant address and death searches, survivor support, QDROs, QMCSOs, legal instrument review and compliance training.

THE SEYFARTH EXPERIENCE

We use the firm’s industry-leading service delivery resources to provide greater transparency while helping our clients better manage events such as benefit plan restructuring and plan terminations. We offer alternative fee arrangements and process mapping to provide spend predictability in such areas as Qualified Domestic Relations Orders (QDROs), Qualified Medical Child Support Order (QMCSO) management, legal instrument reviews, and claim administration.

We work across the firm’s full-service platform, bringing in practitioners in all areas to provide the best information to our clients. Our Employee Benefits attorneys interact regularly with Seyfarth’s Labor & Employment team. This close working relationship enables us to bring an employee relations sensitivity to our day-to-day client interactions. In addition to our expert Employee Benefits counseling and compliance attorneys, we also have a deep bench of litigators specializing in ERISA and benefits litigation.

EXPERIENCE

Assisted large US health care provider with the design and implementation of a multiple wave, multiple year lump sum window project for one of the largest health care providers in the US involving approximately $8 billion in total plan assets and approximately 45,000 active and eligible participants. We played a lead role in all phases of the project, including developing the pension plan rules and plan amendments, preparing participant communication materials and managing participant inquiries and claims.
Serve as outside legal counsel to American multinational appliance manufacturer on executive compensation and employee benefits matters, including all matters related to the client’s ERISA-covered pension plans. Related to the client’s recent third-party annuity purchase and consolidation of its five pension plans into two new plans, we assisted with all facets of these undertakings, including drafting and managing the RFP processes for an insurance company to assume the outgoing benefit obligations and an independent expert to evaluate the insurance company candidates; contracting with all vendors; preparation of presentations and documentation for client’s ERISA fiduciaries; preparation of plan documents and amendments; and all associated governmental filings.
Provided advice and counsel regarding the maintenance of the tax qualified status of a health system’s 401(k) plan, which included submissions pursuant to the Internal Revenue Service’s Voluntary Compliance Program. We were also involved in the design, implementation and drafting of such plans, as well as early retirement programs.
Assisted a client to restructure its welfare arrangements to achieve a more efficient delivery of benefits to its workforce, manage increasing costs, and streamline administration. After consulting with the client on its objectives and business requirements, we helped the client achieve those goals by: implementing a high-deductible health plan/health savings account (HSA) arrangement; implementing a health reimbursement arrangement (HRA); converting its self-insured retiree health plan to a fully insured arrangement; terminating two existing voluntary employees benefits association (VEBA) trusts that no longer served their intended purposes; converting its short-term disability program from a self-insured arrangement to a fully insured program; designing and implementing an expatriate health plan for its international workforce; and developing participant communications related to the welfare plan restructuring.
Worked with a client’s new board of directors to implement new SERPs, equity awards, change-in-control agreements, director deferred compensation plans, and assessed the content, scope and timing of SEC filings and disclosures. This work was required under client's emergence from cross-border creditor protection proceedings, and its subsequent listing on the NYSE and TSX.
A publicly traded client needed assistance with the design and implementation of fiduciary compliance programs for each of the administrative committees under its four retirement plans, including two collectively bargained plans. Our team undertook an initial assessment of the client’s existing practices and procedures. Following our completed assessment and evaluation, we provided the client with a manageable fiduciary compliance program, including the adoption of administrative committee charters, adoption of formal investment policy statements, fiduciary compliance training for the administrative committee members, a system for managing regular meetings, and adequately documenting fiduciary actions. The client was able to efficiently and successfully implement a governance program that met its fiduciary obligations.
Successfully established a new multiemployer pension trust and merged in 14 single employer plans. The project included conducting detailed analysis and due diligence of each single employer plan; drafting the plan document, declaration of trust, summary plan description, and all plan administrative forms; negotiating agreements with new service providers; negotiating merger agreements with each employer; managing asset transfers from each single employer plan; and maintaining communications with all participating employers to facilitate transition to the new multiemployer plan.
Represented a client that had not actively administered its ESOP for several years and was concerned with determining its options for dealing with the ESOP and any potential negative reactions. Our team conducted an audit of the client’s ESOP and its administration, with subsequent advice to terminate the plan. We structured a redemption of company stock from the ESOP for cash and voluntarily submitted certain operational problems to the IRS. In order to proactively address any potential employee relations concerns, we helped prepare communications materials to update disgruntled participants on the plan’s status. Distributions were made to terminated participants, and cash accounts of current employees were transferred to the company’s 401(k) plan.

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Helping you win the war for talent with strategic and compliant benefit programs.

HOW WE HELP

OUR SERVICES

THE SEYFARTH EXPERIENCE

EXPERIENCE

Assisted large US health care provider with the design and implementation of a multiple wave, multiple year lump sum window project for one of the largest health care providers in the US involving approximately $8 billion in total plan assets and approximately 45,000 active and eligible participants. We played a lead role in all phases of the project, including developing the pension plan rules and plan amendments, preparing participant communication materials and managing participant inquiries and claims.
Serve as outside legal counsel to American multinational appliance manufacturer on executive compensation and employee benefits matters, including all matters related to the client’s ERISA-covered pension plans. Related to the client’s recent third-party annuity purchase and consolidation of its five pension plans into two new plans, we assisted with all facets of these undertakings, including drafting and managing the RFP processes for an insurance company to assume the outgoing benefit obligations and an independent expert to evaluate the insurance company candidates; contracting with all vendors; preparation of presentations and documentation for client’s ERISA fiduciaries; preparation of plan documents and amendments; and all associated governmental filings.
Provided advice and counsel regarding the maintenance of the tax qualified status of a health system’s 401(k) plan, which included submissions pursuant to the Internal Revenue Service’s Voluntary Compliance Program. We were also involved in the design, implementation and drafting of such plans, as well as early retirement programs.
Assisted a client to restructure its welfare arrangements to achieve a more efficient delivery of benefits to its workforce, manage increasing costs, and streamline administration. After consulting with the client on its objectives and business requirements, we helped the client achieve those goals by: implementing a high-deductible health plan/health savings account (HSA) arrangement; implementing a health reimbursement arrangement (HRA); converting its self-insured retiree health plan to a fully insured arrangement; terminating two existing voluntary employees benefits association (VEBA) trusts that no longer served their intended purposes; converting its short-term disability program from a self-insured arrangement to a fully insured program; designing and implementing an expatriate health plan for its international workforce; and developing participant communications related to the welfare plan restructuring.
Worked with a client’s new board of directors to implement new SERPs, equity awards, change-in-control agreements, director deferred compensation plans, and assessed the content, scope and timing of SEC filings and disclosures. This work was required under client's emergence from cross-border creditor protection proceedings, and its subsequent listing on the NYSE and TSX.
A publicly traded client needed assistance with the design and implementation of fiduciary compliance programs for each of the administrative committees under its four retirement plans, including two collectively bargained plans. Our team undertook an initial assessment of the client’s existing practices and procedures. Following our completed assessment and evaluation, we provided the client with a manageable fiduciary compliance program, including the adoption of administrative committee charters, adoption of formal investment policy statements, fiduciary compliance training for the administrative committee members, a system for managing regular meetings, and adequately documenting fiduciary actions. The client was able to efficiently and successfully implement a governance program that met its fiduciary obligations.
Successfully established a new multiemployer pension trust and merged in 14 single employer plans. The project included conducting detailed analysis and due diligence of each single employer plan; drafting the plan document, declaration of trust, summary plan description, and all plan administrative forms; negotiating agreements with new service providers; negotiating merger agreements with each employer; managing asset transfers from each single employer plan; and maintaining communications with all participating employers to facilitate transition to the new multiemployer plan.
Represented a client that had not actively administered its ESOP for several years and was concerned with determining its options for dealing with the ESOP and any potential negative reactions. Our team conducted an audit of the client’s ESOP and its administration, with subsequent advice to terminate the plan. We structured a redemption of company stock from the ESOP for cash and voluntarily submitted certain operational problems to the IRS. In order to proactively address any potential employee relations concerns, we helped prepare communications materials to update disgruntled participants on the plan’s status. Distributions were made to terminated participants, and cash accounts of current employees were transferred to the company’s 401(k) plan.

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