Employer Strategies

Most Investment Committees spend the majority of their meeting time talking about things they can't do anything about.

Officials from IBM, Disney and Air Liquide discuss how to create an effective international benefits strategy.

President Barack Obama named Thomas Perez, an assistant U.S. attorney general, as his choice for labor secretary in his second term. Perez would replace Hilda Solis, ensuring that the Labor Department is led again by a Hispanic, helping the president maintain diversity in his cabinet. Solis resigned in January.

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation reports that shifting its enforcement policy away from companies unlikely to default on their pensions benefited about 50 businesses by almost $1 billion since the start of a pilot program announced in November.

Last week Richard Stolz in his article, Red Alert for Fiduciaries on Plan Financial Reports properly noted that plan fiduciaries are more vulnerable than ever on a number of compliance matters, including the financial statements included with their 5500 filings.

In a legislative session sponsored by the Society for Human Resource Management, benefits attorney Elizabeth Vollmar covered everything from in-house administration functions to avoiding financial exposure.

A federal judge has issued a preliminary injunction on PPACA’s contraception requirement, saying an employer’s First Amendment rights could be irreparably harmed if the mandate was enforced while a lawsuit was pending.

Despite the progress made through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on health care access, there are challenges to come from health reform, said Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wisc.) Thursday at the AHIP National Policy Forum in Washington.

Ford Motor Co., while moving to close a growing deficit in its pension, will shift more of its plan’s assets to fixed income to shield against changes in interest rates.

The experts all seem to agree: 401(k) plans should be set up to automatically distribute small ($5K or less) balances of former employees into IRAs using well established safe harbor procedures.