Compliance December 1, 2006

DoL Provides Multiemployer Plan Election Model Notice

The Department of Labor (DoL) has announced that a model notice, which may be used by employee benefit plans electing to be treated as a multiemployer plan under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), will be published in the Federal Register for December 1, 2006.
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The Pension Protection Act of 2006 (PPA) amended ERISA to permit certain plans that had elected to be single-employer plans to revoke that election and to allow other plans to elect to be treated as multiemployer plans, provided that notice of the election is furnished to participants and other interested parties no later than 30 days before the election, the DoL said in its announcement. Elections must be made with the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation within one year after the enactment of the PPA.

Among other things, the notice must describe the principal differences between ERISA’s guarantee programs and benefit restrictions for single-employer and multiemployer plans. The DoL said its model notice may be used by plan administrators to fulfill their notice obligations when making an election.

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A copy of the model notice will also be available through the DOL’s Employee Benefits Security Administration Web site at www.dol.gov/ebsa.

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