ERISA and Employee Benefits

We handle a full range of employer and plan sponsor needs related to retirement arrangements, including plan drafting, design, amendment and restatement, ERISA compliance counseling, employee communications, government filings, and more. We help companies that sponsor all types of qualified retirement plans, including multiemployer plans, church plans, governmental plans, 401(k) defined contribution and defined benefit plans.

Our team regularly counsels clients on issues related to ERISA fiduciary duties, including reviewing companies’ fiduciary structures and governance to advise on methods they can use to mitigate liability. We have extensive experience with third party administrators, including negotiating administrative contracts and other agreements, as well as identifying and working through compliance issues related to plan documentation, governance, and administration.

Our practice also extends to audits, examinations, and investigations by the US Department of Labor (DOL), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), including handling of voluntary and self-corrections programs.

Crowell’s lawyers have vast experience with a wide range of health and welfare arrangements. We frequently design and draft group health plans and related tax vehicles, including wrap plans, cafeteria plans, health savings accounts (HSAs), flexible spending accounts (FSAs), health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs) and voluntary employees' beneficiary associations (VEBAs). Our lawyers are skilled compliance counselors with respect to taxation, ERISA, Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA), Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), Affordable Care Act (ACA) and other laws affecting health and welfare arrangements. Our team members are also skilled advisors regarding best practices in documentation and operations to reduce liability in the event of plan claims, appeals or litigation.

Our lawyers have significant experience in the taxation of fringe benefits and in the payroll tax implications of various executive compensation and health and welfare programs. For example, our aviation experience [link] allows us to handle questions relating to executive travel and the use of the corporate jet. In addition, our experience in executive compensation allows us to discuss the payroll tax implications of stock option exercise or the FICA tax implications of restricted stock units vesting.

We offer unique insight on rewarding executives including design and establishment of equity, severance, incentive and deferred compensation plans to help. We regularly provide counsel on efficient and effective plan design compliant with applicable provisions of ERISA and the Internal Revenue Code including Section 280G, 4999, and 409A. Our practice reaches all the areas implicated by executive compensation arrangements, including payroll tax, partnership tax, deductions, corporate governance, SEC reporting, and employment law.

We advise clients in large corporate transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, stock and asset sales, corporate restructuring, and spin-offs. Our lawyers have experience advising companies on both sides of such transactions.

Since Crowell believes that collaboration powers success, our lawyers understand that these transactions can impact a number of areas of law beyond our knowledge in the employee benefits space. This is why we take a multidisciplinary approach and work across all of Crowell’s practice groups relevant to a given deal to ensure proper advice in all aspects of the transaction.

In light of the aggressive rise in ERISA class action lawsuits in both the retirement plan and, increasingly so, health plan areas – lawsuits that expose Boards of Directors, C-Suite and other employees to personal liability under ERISA – our ERISA attorneys have developed unique compliance and fiduciary protection programs to help employers minimize their risks. The increase in ERISA fiduciary litigation under health plans has joined the rise of similar challenges to retirement plans. The results have cost employers’ billions of dollars over the last few years. Our ERISA litigators have vast experience in representing clients before courts, tribunals and regulators including the IRS, DOL, PBGC, and HHS. Our team has recently represented a global hospitality company in a class action alleging ERISA violations in the form of excessive fees charges to participants of the company’s 401(k) plan. Crowell successfully argued that the putative class action should not be certified resulting in a voluntary dismissal of the claims with prejudice.

When it comes tax-exempt organizations and government entities, our lawyers have an uncommon depth of experience and insight into their unique benefits and compensation issues, which are often very different from those encountered by taxable entities. Our experience includes counselling clients regarding church plans, including committee structure, governance, ERISA exemptions or elections and state law implications. We also regularly draft and design 457(b) and 457(f) deferred compensation arrangements and 403(b) retirement plans.