Employee Benefits
We have ten partners who work exclusively in the employee benefits area. Below is a sample client list from the many large U.S. and foreign multinational clients who seek our counsel on sophisticated benefits issues as well as day-to-day plan maintenance. Many of these clients have remained with Ivins, Phillips and Barker for decades. Sample Employee Benefits Clients
We practice in the following areas: Qualified Plans Qualified PlansThe Basics. Our practice covers design, implementation, and compliance work for all forms of tax-qualified pension and savings plans, including 401(k), ESOPs, and cash balance plans. We advise a significant percentage of the Fortune 100 on qualified plan legal work – including 40% of the Top 10. At least a dozen of our clients have plan assets well into the billions, many with over 100,000 active employees. Our clients cut across all industries, including automotive, aerospace and defense, oil and gas, manufacturing, retail, and technology. One of our specialties is auditing clients’ qualified plans for operational compliance. We have performed compliance reviews on some of the largest plans in the country, with assets over $300 billion. We regularly assist all clients with self-corrections of operational “goofs”, as well as with more formal IRS and DOL corrections programs. M&A. Few firms can match our experience in helping clients with the transition period following major acquisitions. During the last ten years we have worked on over fifty transactions, many of which were multi-billion dollar deals. These include the spin-off of Dresser from Halliburton, the creation of a joint venture between Reichhold and Dow Chemical, and numerous substantial acquisitions within the aerospace and defense industries. This M&A work involves intensive drafting to set up new plans and to coordinate with existing plans. We assist with the high-level plan design strategy, as well as the day-to-day vendor contracts and payroll conversions. Perhaps our most valuable contribution in this area is our ability to trouble-shoot quickly. Because we have worked through so many acquisitions, we can provide detailed guidance at the inception of a deal about the many tasks ahead. Bankruptcy and Funding Waivers. We have considerable experience helping sponsors of qualified pension plans navigate chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code. Our attorneys have been involved in one way or another in nearly every major bankruptcy case involving a qualified pension plan in the last 20 years, including such cases as United Airlines, Delta Airlines, Northwest Airlines, US Airways, Enron, Kaiser Aluminum, Wheeling Pittsburgh Steel, Pan American World Airways, Trans World Airlines, New Valley (Western Union), LTV Steel, and Delphi Corporation. We also have had great success helping our clients secure pension plan funding waivers from the IRS and PBGC on favorable terms. In fact, Ivins represented the corporation that received the largest pension plan funding waivers ever granted (PLRs 200730026, 200730027). Cash Balance Plans. Our cash balance plan practice and expertise is unmatched. We set up one of the Fortune 100’s first cash balance plans fifteen years ago, and we continue to draft new cash balance plans for clients each year. Nearly two dozen of our clients have cash balance plans today. Our expert knowledge of cash balance plans is frequently tapped for lobbying, litigation support, and scholarly publications — even by other law firms, and by employers who use other counsel for their regular work. For example:
We devote a significant part of our practice to executive compensation. We advise clients extensively on section 409A compliance, and have redesigned and redrafted many executive agreements, plans and programs to comply with Section 409A’s complex new rules. We routinely design and draft plans including SARs, stock options, parachute agreements, and executive retention and severance agreements. We also obtain rulings on these issues, and counsel clients on compliance-related issues under section 83, section 162(m) and section 404. We handle design, implementation, and compliance work for all types of welfare and fringe benefit plans. We have worked extensively with all aspects of group medical, disability, and life insurance benefits – including the alphabet soup of VEBAs, HSAs, COBRA, and HIPAA. Our extensive experience includes lobbying Code section 125 into existence in 1978, on behalf of a client that had set up one of the earliest cafeteria plans. By now, we have had nearly 30 years of experience working with cafeteria plans for both large and small employers. Fringe Benefits and Employment Taxes We also advise clients on fringe benefits taxation and any associated IRS reporting and withholding obligations. Our mergers and acquisitions experience includes the payroll tax aspects of combining and separating workforces. We advise clients on how to ease the transition to a new payroll system, FICA restart issues, and appointing agents to handle payroll responsibilities. The ERISA fiduciary area continues to expand because of the steady increase in ERISA litigation. We advise both boards of directors and plan administrative committees on their fiduciary duties and on ways to minimize liability. We also consult with clients more broadly on the impact of the fiduciary and prohibited transaction rules in plan administration, and obtain special prohibited transaction exemptions for clients from the Department of Labor. Title IV and Plan Terminations We have handled dozens of pension terminations under Title IV of ERISA and pioneered innovative techniques that permitted clients to recapture hundreds of millions of dollars of pension surpluses, negotiated settlements with the PBGC, and procured breakthrough rulings from the PBGC and IRS to permit the use of participating annuities in plan terminations, providing immense cost savings to our clients. We also consult with clients on PBGC premium issues, reportable events, and funding. We have long experience advising clients that are U.S. and foreign multinationals. We have consulted with them on the special problems arising because of cross-border issues and employees transferring among different jurisdictions. We have developed particular expertise in 404A plans. We have also helped our clients set up plans in Canada and Puerto Rico. We have an active and long-standing lobbying practice both on Capitol Hill and with the Treasury and Labor Departments. We were involved with the enactment of the cafeteria plan (section 125) and the 401(k) provisions of the Code, two of the most significant employee benefit changes in the last 30 years. More recently, we formed the Cash Balance Alliance, an employers’ umbrella group to represent clients on their unique cash balance questions in front of Treasury, the IRS, and Congress. See more information on attorneys in this practice group Carroll J. Savage We have offices in Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles, California and provide legal advice and services to clients both nationally and internationally. |
