Benefits & ERISA Law

Talking About Compliance is Cheap - Taking Action On Compliance Is What Matters

I talk regularly, of course, about the importance of compliance in the operation of ERISA plans - just take a look at my immediately preceding post for instance - but that is just a fancy way of restating the old saw that an ounce of prevention (in the form of a well run plan) is worth a pound of cure. As an ERISA litigator, the cure - litigation - is better business for me than the ounce of prevention ever could be, but that doesn't change the basic fact that the only real precaution against litigation costs and liability is a well run plan, and the best defense against a lawsuit that arises anyway is the same thing -a well run plan.

But how do you get to a well run plan? While there are a number of ways to get there, here are a couple. Ary Rosenbaum, in this piece, explains why one step towards a well run plan is to bring in expert legal advice on the compliance aspects of the plan right from the get go. A true ounce of prevention strategy if I have ever heard one. Another is to constantly increase the knowledge base of a plan's decision makers. On that front, Pozek on Pension's Adam Pozek and ERISA lawyer Ilene Ferenczy have created a really useful little engine for accomplishing that, in the form of a series of webinars offered by Pension Pundits LLC. Their next one, coming up shortly after the first of the year, is on non-discrimination testing, and you can sign up for it here. At the end of the day, litigation costs too much money, even if a plan's sponsor and its fiduciaries prevail, to not take advantage of these type of opportunities to avoid getting sued.

Full post as published by Boston ERISA Law Blog on December 30, 2010 (boomark / email).