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News Archive
The confetti has been swept from Times Square and the bubbly bottles are in the recycling, and the nitty-gritty of applying those new year’s resolutions has begun. A recent blog entry has some suggestions for resolutions to follow in order to better fulfill fiduciary duties.
In “6 New Year’s...
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Some things are inexorable. Seasons. Tides. And, argues a recent blog entry, plan litigation. But as with natural phenomena whose effects can be mitigated, the analysis suggests that lessons from the litigation that has taken place can benefit 401(k) and 403(b) plan fiduciaries in 2019.
Litigation...
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The Department of Labor (DOL) is aggressively investigating the practices and procedures of plan sponsors with respect to locating missing participants and distributing benefits to those participants. In some cases, the DOL is asserting breaches of fiduciary duty for failure to perform regular...
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The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) has issued new maximum civil penalties that it can assess for failure to provide certain notices or other material information and for failure to provide certain multiemployer plan notices.
The new maximum amounts are $2,194 for section 4071...
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More Americans are more confident about saving for retirement as 2018 draws to a close than they were as the year began, according to a recent study. And more good news — that sentiment has grown the most among younger workers.
Glass Less Empty
The Pew Charitable Trust recently reported that in a...
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Bipartisan legislation to allow plan sponsors to use e-delivery as the default distribution method for ERISA required retirement plan documents was reintroduced in the Senate in the waning days of the 115th Congress.
The Receiving Electronic Statements to Improve Retiree Earnings (RETIRE) Act (S....
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A plan sponsor who had been sued for allegedly breaching its ERISA fiduciary duties in shifting allocations in a plan’s custom target-date portfolios to “risky and high-cost” investments will have to go back to court.
Suit ‘Able’
The original lawsuit, filed in November 2015 in the U.S. District...
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After a year-long investigation into MetLife for failing to make pension payments to retirees, Secretary of the Commonwealth William F. Galvin has announced terms of a settlement with the firm.
According to Galvin, his office has entered into a consent order, requiring MetLife to pay a fine of $1...
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A few years back – when my kids were still “kids” – and believed in the reality of Santa Claus – we stumbled across an ingenious website.
This was a website that purported to offer a real-time assessment of one’s “naughty or nice” status.
Now, as Christmas approached, it was not uncommon for us...
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The mid-terms are over and the Democrats are taking back control of the House for the first time since 2010, while the GOP slightly expanded its hold on the Senate majority. Believe it or not, while the talk outside the Beltway has largely focused on the prospects for even more gridlock, the...
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When it comes to advice and support on how to achieve lifetime financial goals, a solid majority of respondents across all generations look to their 401(k) provider as their primary resource, new survey results show.
According to a T. Rowe Price study of current workers, 64% say they rely “a great...
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Amid volatile markets, participant trading picked up in November.
In what was described as a “more typical” month, there were three days (out of 21) of “above normal” trading during November, according to the Alight Solutions 401(k) Index. That was down from the five the previous month, but well...
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After “more than two years of litigation, multiple motions and the review of more than 100,000 pages of documents exchanged in discovery,” the plaintiffs and defendants in an excessive fee suit have come to terms.
The settlement (Schultz v. Edward D. Jones & Co., LP, E.D. Mo., No. 4:16-cv-...
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While some may be dismissive of the notion, new research makes the case that employers should care about their employees’ stress levels if they aren’t already.
Personal finances are a significant cause of stress, which can lead to lost productivity, a diminished ability to save for retirement and...
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ASPPA Connect will not appear on Monday, Dec. 24, as the ASPPA office will be closed. We’ll be back on Wednesday, Dec. 26. We wish you happy holidays — and offer a few little-known facts concerning the holiday season:
The first Christmas card was sent in 1843 and was designed by John Horsley....
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In the waning days of the 115th Congress, the bipartisan duo of Sens. Rob Portman (R-OH) and Ben Cardin (D-MD) unveiled one of the most comprehensive pieces of retirement security legislation proposed in this congressional session.
The 121-page “Retirement Security and Savings Act of 2018,” ...
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Wishing they had done more to prepare for retirement, new research finds that nearly 40% of U.S. retirees are spending more than they expected and are having to cut back on common expenses.
Additionally, slightly less than half (49%) of pre-retired consumers (ages 40+) believe planning for...
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The participant-plaintiffs in a stock drop case have won a rare victory in federal court.
The plaintiffs alleged that the IBM defendants (IBM itself, along with the Retirement Plans Committee of IBM; Richard Carroll, IBM’s Chief Accounting Officer; Martin Schroeter, IBM’s CFO; and Richard Weber,...
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Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee, has introduced legislation that would permit 401(k), 403(b) and SIMPLE retirement plans to make matching contributions to workers as if their student loan payments were salary reduction contributions.
Earlier this year the IRS...
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“Cash is king” may not be fully true when it comes to finding the perfect job, as a newly published survey shows that Americans favor workplace benefits over extra salary.
An AICPA survey of 2,026 U.S. adults, among whom 1,115 were employed, suggests that employers need to be ready to show...
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