July 6, 2004

 

ERISA Disclosure Requirements

RPost Registered E-mail^® – Protection from Investment Loss Liability

By Pat Byrnes, MSPA, MAAA, EA

 

Officers, directors, board members, 401(k) Plan committee members, Plan administrators, trustees, investment advisors, and investment managers could be held personally liable for investment losses resulting from participant investment decisions unless the Plan complies with the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) Section 404(c).

 

To abate this liability many plan sponsors are voluntarily electing to become compliant under ERISA Section 404(c). Compliance is achieved by providing required and requested information to participants and making sure they actually received it, even if they CLAIM that they did not receive the notice.

 

Full article is available in PDF format here.

 

Pat Byrnes, Member of the American Society of Pension Actuaries (MSPA), Member of the American Academy of Actuaries (MAAA) and an Enrolled Actuary (EA), is President of Actuarial Consultants, Inc., a Los Angelesbased consulting and administrative firm. He is also cofounder of Strategic Benefits Group, as well as cofounder and Managing Director of CCi, a compensation consulting company.

He is past President of the American Society of Pension Actuaries (ASPA), and in 2004 received the Commissioner’s Award from the Tax-exempt and Government Entities Division of the Internal Revenue Service for his contributions in co-founding and cochairing the Los Angeles Benefits Conference for the past 13 years. He earned a Bachelor of Science and Commerce from the University of Santa Clara in 1967 and a Masters in Business Administration from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1969.