Practice Areas: Employee Benefits

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DOL Publishes Guidance on 401(k) Plan and IRA Investment Advice (3/12/2010)

Once More Unto The Breach: COBRA Subsidy Extended Again (3/5/2010)

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McGuireWoods’ lawyers provide comprehensive employee benefits services to a wide range of clients, including publicly held companies, small and large privately held companies, tax-exempt organizations and educational institutions.

Our employee benefits services fall generally into the following areas, and many of our attorneys have subspecialties within these areas:

Retirement Plans

In the area of qualified retirement plans, we design and draft pension and profit sharing plans, 401(k) cash or deferred arrangements and other specialized plans. Our lawyers are experienced in the formation and implementation of employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), both leveraged and non-leveraged. The Employee Benefits group obtains rulings on plan qualification and related questions from federal administrative and regulatory agencies. We also advise clients in connection with such special programs as early retirement window and severance programs.

Fiduciary Advice

Our lawyers provide advice to plan sponsors, issuers of securities, institutional fiduciaries, and securities brokers and dealers on ERISA implications of their business activities. The fiduciary issues include prohibited transactions and available exemptions, ERISA plan asset issues, fiduciary standards of conduct, and securities law disclosure requirements.

Health and Welfare Benefits

We handle a broad range of health and welfare benefit matters, including drafting and operational advice about medical, dental, life insurance, cafeteria, and severance plans. We provide advice about discrimination issues relating to employee benefits and ERISA aspects of self-insuring benefits. In conjunction with the Labor and Employment Law group, the Employee Benefits group assists clients with issues arising under the Family and Medical Leave Act, Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and other federal and state legislation.

ERISA Litigation

The Employee Benefits Group supports the McGuireWoods Labor and Employment Law group in all types of ERISA litigation, including claims disputes, fiduciary duty and plan compliance issues. See our Executive Compensation practice for more information.

Integrated Services

Our Employee Benefits group is an integral part of other areas of McGuireWoods’ practice and is heavily supported by the firm’s labor and employment law, litigation and corporate services departments. As a result, we are able to deal on a sophisticated and comprehensive basis with all aspects of programs designed to deliver retirement and welfare benefits to employees.

These integrated services include:

  • litigation of claims disputes
  • fiduciary duty and plan compliance issues
  • matters arising in the acquisition or disposition of a business
  • plan terminations
  • plan spin-offs
  • plan assumptions and problems involving multi-employer and Taft Hartley plans
  • employee benefit aspects of public offerings
  • mutual fund regulation and security law matters
  • real estate investments and special concerns of real estate ownership by retirement plans
  • planning and compliance related to incentive compensation
  • stock options and other programs designed for executives

Representative Work

The following matters reflect the group's capabilities across a range of industries and issues:

  • Represented a large manufacturer in a class pension appeal against one of its unions. The issue was whether former employees at one of its facilities were entitled to special "shutdown" pension benefits as the result of the sale and curtailment operations at that facility. The firm has represented this manufacturer in six pension appeals, winning all six.
  • Assisted a large financial institution with a restructuring of the investment portfolio in its pension plan, which involved an reallocation of more than $700 million of the plan's assets among a variety of new investment managers. McGuireWoods serves as regular outside counsel to the plan's fiduciary committees.
  • Represented a number of sellers and buyers in connection with the employee benefits aspects of corporate mergers and acquisitions.
  • Defended a Fortune 100 company against claims by former employees that it discriminated against them and interfered with their right to pension benefits when it sold one of its businesses to a firm that provided the workers with fewer benefits than it was previously providing to them.