What’s in a name?

I received this great piece from a colleague of mine, Joe Reese, who kindly offered to post it on our blog.  Thanks Joe - Jason G.

Recently, we were competing for a law firm and were told by the Plan Sponsor that the insurance company service providers we were competing with “can assume being named the Plan Trustee.”  We are a discretionary plan trustee – it was clear the insurance company service providers were offering a directed trustee solution. While a discretionary trustee and a directed trustee are both trustees and both fiduciaries, they are not one in the same. 

After days of back and forth, reviewing documents, etc. the law firm requested 3rd party information highlighting the difference between a discretionary trustee and directed trustee. The following was our response.

First, some context…

ERISA Section 402(a) provides that a written plan document must include one or more ‘‘named fiduciaries’’ who control and manage the plan’s operation and ad-ministration. ERISA Section 403(a) states that plan assets generally are held in trust, managed by trustees either named in the trust instrument or appointed by the plan’s named fiduciary. Trustees typically have authority to manage and control plan assets unless the plan expressly provides that the trustees are subject to the direction of the named fiduciary or delegates such authority to an investment manager.

Then in the DOL’s own words…

DOL Field Assistance Bulletin 2004-3: Fiduciary Responsibilities of Directed Trustees

http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/regs/fab_2004-3.html

Here are a couple key parts of the above Field Assistance Bulletin:

• The duties of a directed trustee under section 403(a)(1) are therefore significantly narrower than the duties generally ascribed to a discretionary trustee under common law trust principles.
• The named fiduciary has primary responsibility for determining the prudence of a particular transaction, whether the transaction involves buying, selling or holding particular assets. Accordingly, as the courts and the Department have long recognized, the scope of a directed trustee’s responsibility is significantly limited. A directed trustee does not, in the view of the Department, have an independent obligation to determine the prudence of every transaction. The directed trustee does not have an obligation to duplicate or second-guess the work of the plan fiduciaries that have discretionary authority over the management of plan assets and does not have a direct obligation to determine the prudence of a transaction.  See In re WorldCom ERISA Litig., 263 F. Supp. 2d at 761;  Herman v. NationsBank Trust Co., 126 F.3d at 1361-62, 1371 (directed trustee does not have a direct obligation of prudence under ERISA section 404; its obligation is simply “to make sure” the “directions were proper, in accordance with the terms of the plan, and not contrary to ERISA”).

And finally, Case Law…

Federal courts have typically held that a retirement plan’s directed trustee can’t be held liable if it followed the investment directions of the plan’s named fiduciary. Below is a summary of cases dealing with directed trustee liability.

Renfro v. Unisys Corp., 671 F. 3d 314 - Court of Appeals, 3rd Circuit 2011

“Fidelity's limited role as a directed trustee, delineated in the trust agreement, does not encompass the activities alleged as a breach of fiduciary duty—the selection and maintenance of the mix and range of investment options included in the plan.”

“As we have explained, a directed trustee is essentially "immune from judicial inquiry" because it lacks discretion, taking instructions from the plan that it is required to follow.”  

Fidelity maintained that it was not a fiduciary with respect to the conduct constituting the alleged fiduciary breach. The trial court granted Fidelity's motion to dismiss, ruling that Fidelity and its related entities were not fiduciaries with respect to the challenged conduct because they did not exercise control over the selection and inclusion of investment options in the plan.

Tussey v. ABB, Inc., Case 2:06-CV-04305, 2010 Document 103

“By the plain language of the Trust Agreement, Fidelity Trust has no responsibility for reviewing the merits of fund choices made by the Pension Review Committee. 

Thus, Fidelity Trust had no responsibility to prevent the addition of the Fidelity Freedom Funds to the Plan’s investment line-up.  For these reasons, the Court finds that Fidelity Trust cannot be held liable for ABB’s breaches under ERISA Section 405(a)(2).” 

Fidelity’s reaction to the Tussey v. ABB court’s decision regarding Fidelity not being responsible as a directed trustee:  “We are pleased with the decision today by the court of appeals,” Vincent Loporchio, a Fidelity spokesman wrote in an email. “Fidelity’s actions were in all respects consistent with our fiduciary duties to our clients and all legal requirements. With this decision on appeal, Fidelity has prevailed on all claims asserted against it in court.” 

In re Cardinal Health Inc. ERISA Litigation, S.D. Ohio, No. C2-04-643, 3/31/06

The US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio dismissed a claim against Putnam Fiduciary Trust Co. as directed trustee of Cardinal Health employees' retirement plan in a case involving company stock investments.  The court found that Putnam was a directed trustee with limited fiduciary duties. The judge also refused to dismiss the employees' claim that some of the Cardinal Health defendants breached their ERISA fiduciary duties by failing to monitor those they had appointed to act as plan fiduciaries, and said Cardinal Health may be liable under the doctrine of respondeat superior for its board of directors' failure to monitor those they appointed to act as plan fiduciaries.

Donovan v. Cunningham14 (S.D. Texas 1982)

This early case briefly discussed the ‘‘limited role’’ of the directed trustee. The court noted that a directed trustee couldn’t be liable for breach of fiduciary duty where its activities ‘‘at all times remained within the limited role of a directed trustee.’’

Maniace v. Commerce Bank of Kansas City18 (8th Cir. 1994)

The Eighth Circuit ruled that a bank serving as directed trustee of an ESOP didn’t violate its fiduciary duties in allowing the plan to continue to hold large amounts of employer stock despite the stock’s declining value. The court found that, as a directed trustee, the bank wasn’t an ERISA fiduciary with respect to employer stock held by the ESOP because it lacked discretion over plan assets. According to the court, ‘‘the obligations of a directed trustee are something less than that owed by typical fiduciaries.’’

Grindstaff v. Green20 (6th Cir. 1998)

The Sixth Circuit ruled that a directed trustee isn’t a fiduciary to the extent it doesn’t control the management or disposition of plan assets. The court rejected ESOP participants’ claim that the ESOP’s directed trustee had a duty to investigate the merits of any directives given to it by the plan’s named fiduciary. The court noted that the trustee had no discretion pertaining to voting the ESOP stock and could only act at the direction of the named fiduciary.

In re McKesson HBOC Inc. ERISA Litigation21 (N.D. Cal. 2002)

A California federal district court dismissed ESOP participants’ claim that the plan’s directed trustee breached its ERISA fiduciary duties by allowing plan fiduciaries to continue to invest in employer stock when it allegedly knew that such an investment was imprudent. The court found that as a directed trustee, the trustee was obligated to follow the investment instructions given by the named fiduciaries and thus couldn’t be held liable for any losses that resulted from performance of its duty to follow those instructions. The court noted in a footnote, however, that if the participants could demonstrate that the trustee knew that the investment directives violated ERISA, then the trustee wouldn’t be relieved of ERISA liability by following such imprudent directives.

Lalonde v. Textron Inc.22 (D. R.I. 2003)

In this case, the district court dismissed ESOP participants’ claim that the plan’s directed trustee breached its fiduciary duties by not rejecting the named fiduciary’s directive to invest in the plan sponsor’s stock. The court found that the directed trustee had no discretionary authority, and hence no fiduciary status. The First Circuit subsequently upheld the district court’s decision after concluding that, even if it were to assume that the trustee wasn’t a true directed trustee, there was nothing in the participants’ complaint that would permit an inference that the trustee abused any discretion it might have had.

Yes, discretionary trustees and directed trustees are both fiduciaries, and trustees…but the role they play are not the same. A Plan Sponsor who confuses the two does so at his or her own peril.

The Directed Trustee Loophole

“On the one hand, fund companies are hired by plan sponsors – and required by law – to create menus that serve the interests of plan participants. On the other hand, they also have an incentive to include their own proprietary funds on the menu, even when more suit­able options are available from other fund families.”     From Are 401(k) Investment Menus Set Solely for Plan Participants, by Poole, Sialm, and Stefanescu, Center for Retirement Research at Boston College

The following is a link to the above cited brief that is based on a forthcoming study in the Journal of Finance: http://crr.bc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/IB_15-13.pdf   The brief highlights something that I think we have all understood to be true (?) but is either overlooked or has just been accepted.  

The study shows mutual fund companies – and I would also argue insurance companies - have an undue influence on the use of their proprietary funds.

“Where mutual fund companies serve as plan trustees – indicating their involvement in the management of the plan – additions and deletions from the menu of investment options often favor the company’s family of funds. More significantly, this bias is especially pronounced in favor of affiliated funds that delivered sub-par returns over the preceding three years.”

Interestingly all of the mutual fund companies would be serving as a directed trustee and would claim (particularly in court) to have no fiduciary responsibility - that the plan sponsor is “making all decisions.”

So how is a Directed Trustee, as a limited purpose fiduciary with a duty of loyalty to the participant and their beneficiaries, allowed to unduly influence investment selection in a way that would put their interests ahead of the participant? Tough question, but I’ll give it a shot.  “Conflicted” is in the eyes of the beholder.  In other words, a directed trustee has free reign, for the most part, to be compensated via revenue sharing payments (ABN AMRO Letter) and/or offer proprietary funds in the investment menu because (although a fiduciary) the directed trustee has no discretion over plan assets.  Thus, the argument is made that, while there may very well be a conflict of interest, it wasn’t the directed trustee’s decision to select XYZ investment manager, it was the plan sponsor’s— therefore, no conflict with ERISA fiduciary standards on the part of the directed trustee.  The following language from the DOL Advisory Opinion 97-15a [Frost Model] spells it out:

“…it is generally the view of the Department that if a trustee acts pursuant to a direction (i.e. is directed) in accordance with section 403(a)(1) or 404(c) of ERISA and does not exercise any authority or control (i.e. discretion) to cause a plan to invest in a mutual fund, the mere receipt by the trustee of a fee or other compensation from the mutual fund in connection with such investment would not in and of itself violate section 406(b)(3).  Note: Emphasis added along with parenthesis

Unified Trust is a Discretionary Plan Trustee – not a Directed Trustee.  Under 403(a), the discretionary plan trustee “shall have exclusive authority and discretion to manage and control the assets of the plan “with a duty of loyalty” and no conflicts of interest.  Subsequent language allows an “escape clause” for the trustee. This language says that to the extent the trustee is directed by the plan sponsor or other named fiduciary they are not responsible for the management of plan assets. This is where the term “directed trustee” comes from. This loophole has been widely used by most vendors giving the appearance of a loyal fiduciary with no conflicts.

If a plan sponsor was truly aware of the difference, which do you think they would choose?

-    A Discretionary Plan Trustee who has a duty of loyalty and no conflicts of interests…like Unified Trust?  

Or 

-      A limited purpose Directed Trustee?

Advisor and Carrier Capacity- Does Size Matter

Last week I was interviewed by Chuck Hammond of The 401(k) Study Group on his weekly podcast.  We discussed a variety of topics including Advisor and Carrier Capacity, business models and new services.  We discussed the challenges Advisors face when working with carriers in the DC Space.  Here is the write up and a link to the podcast.

"Can you differentiate yourself by not taking on all comers?  Is choosing the right client and right partner more important than how large either of them may be?
Listen in to find out!"

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/the401kstudygroup/2014/03/27/advisor-and-carrier-capacity-does-size-matter

- Jason

Fiduciaries, Know thy Duty!

Good article posted this AM on NAPA.net authored by John Lekel.  Within the article it cites a webinar that was conducted for NAPA in January presented by Dr. Greg Kasten of Unified Trust Company regarding fiduciary duty for retirement plan fiduciaries.  Within the webinar, Dr. Kasten offers a variety of good pointers on best practices and some warnings about what is being sold in the market vs. what clients think they are buying.  Here's a short list of best practices;
___
"Prudence is key, Kasten argued, in exercising fiduciary duty. He offered these pointers:
• consider what information is relevant to the decision;
• obtain the information;
• analyze the information;
• make a reasoned decision that other experts in similar situations would make; and
• document the decision"

Thanks John and thanks Dr. Kasten.

The Duty to Monitor - Serious Business!

Way back in June of 2009 we wrote a post called 'Fiduciary Delegation - Myth or Reality', located here;


http://the401kplanblog.blogspot.com/2009_06_01_archive.html

The post discusses the merits of (and how to do it) one fiduciary, such as the plan sponsor, delegating away fiduciary responsibility to another fiduciary, such as a discretionary trustee.  It also specifically points to the parts of the ERISA that relates to appointment and delegation.  In our minds when we wrote that we were thinking specifically of how a plan sponsor might shield itself from fiduciary responsibility surrounding selection and monitoring of investments and the risks associated.  Part and parcel to delegation is 'Prudent Selection and Monitoring'.  The idea was that in order to accomplish some risk mitigation, the plan sponsor would need to make sure the appointed fiduciary was prudently appointed and somehow monitored going forward.  What we didn't deal with in the post, but held true then and still holds true now was that ALL parties associated with the plan, fiduciary or not, must be prudently appointed and monitored.  This Duty to Monitor is part of basic fiduciary responsibility.

Flash forward to 2012.  Very recently, Plan Sponsor Magazine published an article specifically dealing with a plan sponsor, Clark Graphics, failing to properly monitor its' functional Administrator (ERISA 3(16)) or their hired service provider, the Third Party Administrator (TPA).  You can find the article here;

http://www.plansponsor.com/Employer_to_Pay_500K_for_Failing_to_Monitor_TPA.aspx

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) suit alleged insufficient oversight and mishandling of plan assets resulting in multiple violations of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. Specifically, the suit alleged that the owners, failed in their fiduciary responsibilities as plan trustees by neglecting to monitor the actions of the plans’ administrator.  The results were that the owner's of the company are being asked to restore the funds to the two plans in question amounting to approx. $500k and that the administrator in question is required to restore the same sum offset by the amount paid by the owners.  One way or the other, the plan participants will be made whole from the administrative mistakes.  Both the owner and the service provider are no longer allowed to serve as fiduciaries or service providers to any other plans.


“Employers that sponsor retirement plans have a fiduciary duty to monitor plan assets and ensure they are handled appropriately and protected,” said Assistant Secretary of Labor for Employee Benefits Security Phyllis C. Borzi. “Contracting with an outside firm to manage those assets does not absolve them of their legal responsibilities.”

We can't think of a better case to illustrate the importance of monitoring service providers.  That said, this case begs the question;

Are the business owner's or an appointed internal committee of business managers the appropriate people to serve as the plan trustee or as fiduciaries responsible for service provider oversight?  

This author would argue that the answer to that question, most of the time, is no, but that these are the individuals often in charge of doing just that.  In our experience, the expert level of care required is mainly not available within the staff of most employers.  The requisite skills, interest or ERISA education is, simply put, not present.  In our opinion, the party in the best position to provide prudent monitoring of service providers is the Retirement Plan Consultant or Plan Advisor.  If you are a Retirement Plan Professional reading this post, we think it would be a great idea to list this amongst your services offered.

Self Directed Brokerage Window Brou Ha Ha!

Well,

It took a few weeks, but the industry made enough noise about FAQ 30 from the DOL's May 7th release of FAQ's pertaining to Fee Disclosure.  This author posted on June 6th that our interpretation of this FAQ is that it made it effectively impractical for Self Directed Brokerage Accounts to exist in plans of any real size.  Phyllis C. Borzi, assistant secretary of labor for DOL's Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA), said June 18 at the SPARK National Conference that a second set of FAQ's will be forthcoming after July 1st some time.


At the same conference, she did discuss FAQ 30 and basically stated that the industry was overreacting to it and that the spirt of it is that plan fiduciaries must have policies in place to monitor investments and ensure prudence.  See below for an article that discusses the dialogue.

http://www.bna.com/borzi-addresses-concerns-n12884910110/

Our interpretation of the FAQ remains the same.  Ms. Borzi's comments simply reiterate what we feel which is that Self Directed Accounts can still be used in plans, but from a practical perspective can become a very difficult investment choice because of the need to monitor the underlying holdings.  When these brokerage accounts are not in a vendor window, but rather are scattered among various/many brokers it can be a near impossible task for any plan with a substantial number of brokerage accounts.

Fee Disclosure FAQ's, some thoughts on Fee Disclosure - Are Brokerage Accounts on Death's Doorstep?

O.k., so if you're in the Retirement Plan business, you are aware that in a few weeks (July 1st) all the new Fee Disclosure Rules will be in effect.  In early May, the DOL published Field Assistance Bulletin 2012-2 (FAB 2012-2) which is intended to be an FAQ document to aide with all the specific situations that may come up regarding complying with 408(b)-2 and 404a-5.....at least all the situations that they could come up with at this time...LOL.  Below is a link to the bulletin.

http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/pdf/fab2012-2.pdf

Among the more interesting of these FAQ's are Questions 29 and 30 which deal with Brokerage Windows and Self Directed Brokerage Accounts (SDA) in plans.  Specifically, in relationship to Participant-Level Fee Disclosure what is asked is whether Brokerage Windows and Accounts are covered under the regulation.  The short answer to this is yes, they are covered under this regulation. 

However, in my best layman's terminology, what it says is that the SDA window must properly provide disclosure of all potential fees that may exist in that investment structure, but NOT the underlying investments held inside the account.  I.E. The SDA is not considered a Designated Investment Alternative (DIA)

Ex.) If there is an Administrative Fee - like $1000/year or if there are transaction fees, those must be made available for the participants, but if the participant invests in a mutual fund inside the window, that mutual fund doesn't necessarily need to separately comply with the disclosure rules.

Seemingly, this could create a loophole of sorts.  Like having a plan exclusively investing in SDAs and then investing in securities within those windows without any fee disclosure compliance for those securities.....not so fast!!!

In Q30 of this bulletin, what it says is that if a "significant number of participants and beneficiaries" invest in the same underlying security within the brokerage window, that this security would be considered a DIA and be subjected to the 404a-5 Fee Disclosure rules.  So this begs the question, what is the definition of "significant number"?  Later on this bulletin they reference 5 participants or at least 1% of the participants (for plans w. more than 500 participants) as that number.

Based on this stipulation, it led me to consider the following questions.

Q1.) If the uptake at the participant level for the brokerage window is 4 participants or fewer, are we to assume that the DIA questions in the SDA would be a moot point b/c of the reference to five participants or more?


A1.) More or less, yes, although not necessarily moot.  A Plan Sponsor will still need to monitor this and ensure that it is less than five and that in general Prohited Transactions are still being prevented.

Q2.) If the answer to the first question is yes, only worry at five or more, what type of SDA examination procedures needs to be put in place to ascertain whether commonality of holdings exceeds the 5 participant or more threshold? If it does, how does a Plan Sponsor gain proper 404a-5 coverage if that holding is an individual security?

A2.) Theoretically, procedures could be established to monitor these accounts looking for and observing any commonality of holdings.  However, from a practical perspective who is really going to do this?  Certainly not most Plan Sponsors, and it seems a daunting task for any administrative professional to do it either.  It would seem especially difficult in scenarios where the participants aren't in a window, but rather are using their own brokers at different broker dealers. 

DOES THIS MEAN THAT SDAs ARE EFFECTIVELY......DEAD MAN WALKING??  Time will tell, but our interpretation is that yes, for any plan of size with many SDAs, they are no longer practical to have.

Q3.) If the Plan Sponsor does have that policy in palce to properly monitor these (LOL), what happens when the security is an individual stock or bond (ex., Facebook Stock).  How does the stock provide a 404a-5 disclosure? 

A3.) Not likely to happen or be done correctly. 

Q4.) If this 5 or more rule is a rule, what can a firm do to put a policy in place to keep it at five or less without bumping against Non-Discrim. Issues?

A4.) There really is no way to put a restrictive policy in place without potentially running into Benefits, Rights, Features issues, i.e. Discrimination.


So that was a long way to go for this author to conclude the following opinion.  The new Participant Fee Disclosure rules, Rule 404a-5, has effectively mitigated the usefulness of the Brokerage Window in ERISA plans. 

Personally, that makes me happy on some level.  Now we'll see if this is what actually happens over time.

Discretionary v. Directed Trustees: Fiduciary Focus

In case you haven't seen it, yesterday in Morningstar's Fiduciary Focus column, Here --> http://www.morningstar.com/advisor/t/50458854/discretionary-trustees-vs-directed-trustees.htm, author Scott Simon tackled a topic that we, and our firm, Unified Trust, have been tackling for years. The topic is Discretionary Trustees vs. Directed Trustees. I got rather excited, thinking to myself selfishly that finally, someone else is going to discuss the merits of appointing a discretionary corporate trustee and the advantages of that over the more common, less valueable step-sister, the Directed Corporate Trustee.

Note, that while the article is, in my opinion, well written, factual and fairly thorough, I was disappointed, nonetheless, to read that he was referring to Discretionary Trustees in the broader sense. He makes the valid point that all trustees appointed by the Plan Sponsor are Discretionary Trustees unless specifically appointed as a Directed Trustee. That includes individuals, such as business owners or boards or officers appointed in this role. The only place he even mentions that you can appoint a Discretionary CORPORATE Trustee is as an aside where he states how uncommon this appointment is. He doesn't go into the merits of Prudent Fiduciary Appointment, or even compare contrast the differences between the two types of Corporate Trustees. You can incidentally find that on this blog.

Here -->http://the401kplanblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/practical-differences-of-various.html
and
Here -->http://the401kplanblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/338-im-discretionary-trustee-service.html

Disappointment aside, he does make a few very good points.

1.) All trustees are Discretionary unless specifically identified as Directed in the Plan Document at which point the responsibilities of trustee fall back to the Named Fiduciary, typically the Plan Sponsor. The good example of US Airways and their relationship to Fidelity Trust Company is provided.

2.) Directed Trustees provide a very limited array of services, typically asset custody, following direction and ensuring transaction accuracy. They are a highly limited fiduciary, and most (that I've seen) disavow fiduciary status in the contracts.

3.) No one can ensure blanket relief from fiduciary liability. There are only degrees of limited relief. Unfortunately, he doesn't point out that the highest degree is to prudently appoint a Discretionary Corporate Trustee.

So, long story short (too late, I know), Scott Simon wrote a decent article making the point that the devil is in the details, and that Plan Sponsors should be wary of unscrupulous sales pitches about fiduciary relief.

MEP's - Mediocre Employer Protection.....Just Kidding

Actually, the purpose of this post is in response to those seeking some "opinions" on whether MEP's, Multiple Employer Plans, are a good idea or not. The pros/cons are out there, on the pro's side is potential economies of scale and, theoretically, increased fiduciary protection. It has been this author's contention that the MEP is not a silver bullet (as has been sold by various MEP sales people), but isn't a bad idea necessarily. There is a place for all creative designs in the marketplace.

We believe that with a contained, related group of employers and the proper service providers in place, that a MEP structure can work quite well. Think about that small group of franchise owners who are related, but don't have a good employee benefit while the main franchise has a very strong one. Assuming the vendors can work with the group to allow it to be feasible from a cost perspective, this group could benefit quite well from a MEP structure.

That said, although an Employer who adopts a MEP plan for their employees is giving up 'Named Fiduciary' status, meaning they will no longer be the named Plan Sponsor or the Named Administrator or Named Trustee, we believe they will still be a fiduciary under ERISA and will have some remaining obligations. Specificully, under the definition of a fiduciary, ERISA §3(21) has 3 parts. Two of those parts deal with the ability to or the actual excercising of discretion over plan assets. It is under this formal definition that an employer who adopts a MEP is still a fiduciary. Ultimately, at their discretion they are opting into and may opt out of the MEP and this is an excercise of control over plan assets. Therefore, they are still a fiduciary and still have quite a bit of residual responsibilities and risk.

Recently, a series of opinions and subsequent postings have appeared that provide the user with some cautionary advice on MEP programs. See these two links, one from ASPPA and one from The Law Offices of Ilene H. Ferenczy, LLC.

http://www.asppa.org/document-vault/pdfs/asaps/2011/11-22.aspx

https://app.e2ma.net/app/view:CampaignPublic/id:18861.7106427767/rid:fcf0ab2197415e4f2bd0df8fc3501b8c

Interestingly, these are more from the administrative point of view, but also site DOL opinions and a recent discussion held between members of the DOL and IRS with members of the Govt. Action Committee (GAC) of ASPPA. The result is a stated opinion that many of the so-called MEP programs out there wouldn't qualify as MEPs at all because many of the employers are unrelated and therefore fail to meet the qualification. Under those scenarios, if discovered, those plans would be required to file their own 5500's, test separately, have their own fiduciaries, etc. This is VERY different than the way that these increasingly popular "open-end" MEPs are being sold in the marketplace. I think this is a good case of 'Buyer Beware'. The employers are buying a Panacea or Cure-All for their responsibilities, but in reality they aren't gaining much, if anything.

As always, we welcome any differing view points or clarifications. Please, nothing commercial or it will not be posted.

IRS Raises Fees for Most Determination Letters

Fees.....where do we begin? Obviously, the burden of determining if fees are fair, reasonable and necessary is a daunting challenge even for professional fiduciaries. Very few practitioners enjoy going through a fee discussion with clients, the industry has been hiding fees and selling "free" plans for 35 years, necesitating the quite robust set of new rules forthcoming later this year. In many cases, it is hard to get clients to understand all of the moving parts and mechanics of Retirement Plan fees, even harder in some cases to get them to not pass them along to their participants. Of course, in difficult economic times like the present this task becomes even more unplesaant. With that stated, see the below list of IRS imposed fee increases, some of which are 250% increases.....gotta love the timing.

Effective Feb. 1, 2011, The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has raised the fees for determination letters and advisory letters sought by qualified retirement plans.

These increases will be for almost every type of determination letter request, as follows:

(1) For a plan intending to satisfy a design-based or nondesign-based safe harbor, or a plan not seeking a determination letter with respect to any of the general tests, and the plan is not seeking a determination letter with respect to the average benefits test:

The single employer Form 5300 determination letter fee is increased from $1,000 to $2,500;
The single employer Form 5310 determination letter fee is increased from $1,000 to $2,000;
The multiple employer Form 5300 or Form 5310 determination letter fee is increased as follows:

• 2 to 10 employers from $1,500 to $3,000
• 11 to 99 employers from $1,500 to $3,000
• 100 to 499 employers from $10,000 to $15,000
• Over 499 employers from $10,000 to $15,000

Average Benefit Test Or General Tests

(2) For a plan seeking a determination letter with respect to the average benefit test and/or any of the general tests:

The single employer Form 5300 determination letter fee is increased from $1,800 to $4,500;
The single employer Form 5310 determination letter fee is increased from $1,800 to $4,000;
Adopters of a Master or Prototype Plan or a Volume Submitter Plan will pay a fee that is increased from $1,000 to $1,800;
The multiple employer Form 5300 or Form 5310 determination letter fee is increased as follows:

• 2 to 10 employers from $2,300 to $5,000
• 11 to 99 employers from $2,300 to $5,000
• 100 to 499 employers from $15,000 to $25,000
• Over 499 employers from $15,000 to $25,000

(3) For group trust submissions under Rev. Rul. 81-100, C.B. 1981-1, 326; Rev. Rul. 2004-67, C.B. 2004-2, 28, and Rev. Rul. 2011-1, I.R.B. 2011-2, the fee has been increased from $750 to $1,000. Form 5316 to be used for group trust submissions will be available soon, according to the IRS.

For the complete (260 pages) rule please view IRS Revenue Procedure 2011-8 ---> http://irs%20revenue%20procedure%202011-8%20---%3e%20http//www.irs.gov/pub/irs-irbs/irb11-01.pdf

Dynamic Asset Allocation Strategies

Dynamic Asset Allocation strategies are very useful policies for defined benefit plans. What does this type of policy entail? Well, it means that the investment manager is actively looking at a defined benefit plan’s actuarial valuation and using that information to then develop an independent measure of funding status in the interim, on a quarterly basis – an analysis uncommon in an industry focused on capturing alpha or liability driven investing alone.

Funded status is the primary driver of the plan’s allocation within the plan’s Risk Category (or fixed range of allowed equity exposure). This process allows the investment manager to swiftly take action whenever market conditions change through tactical adjustments to the plan’s allocation. This should be fully defined in the IPS and reported in the Fiduciary Monitoring Report; as such, it eliminates the need to obtain approval at the committee level for a change in the plan’s investment strategy every time market conditions drastically change versus the parameters prescribed in the plan’s IPS. The process is documented and anticipates a prudent course of action ahead of these changing market conditions. The focus stays on the funded status of the plan and not simply capturing investment performance.

This is an important approach when investing in a liability driven environment such as the retirement market. Our clients are widely diversified demographically speaking, and present us with a variety of goals that they hope to accomplish within a very real and finite period of time. It's usually less time than is necessary. By focusing on the anticipated liability of a pool of assets (such as defined benefit assets) or individual participant accounts, it is much easier to implement a strategy that either helps the client achieve their goals, or at least, helps them narrow the gap between where they currently are and where they wish to be in the future. Dynamic asset allocation strategies and managed participant accounts not only assist the client with determining where they currently are with regard to meeting their goals, but they vastly improves the probability of reaching their goals, as well. It's compelling evidence for a client, and a service provider, to know that an actual solution is being provided.

I'm a Fiduciary, What Are You?

It’s interesting to observe how trends affect one’s life from time to time. Ordinarily when one thinks of trends, they think of it in the context of the social side of life. For example, trends in music, fashion, television, etc. Every now and then trends start to appear in the professional world as well. One emerged trend of the last several years in the 401(k)/Pension business is the trend towards offering fiduciary services. Of course with this comes the inevitable misusage of the term fiduciary and a variety of marketing terms and sales gimmicks intended to take advantage of the trend without actually providing anything in return. Through the course of travel my coworkers and I often get many of the same questions surrounding ‘fiduciary’. Confusion in this area isn’t surprising as there is a lot of market noise, from the marketing terms like Co-Fiduciary or the sales tools like Fiduciary Warrantees to the newest trend, the selling of specific code sections as the different flavors of fiduciary.

We’ve all seen the various new categories of advisor; ERISA §3(38) Investment Manager, Full-Scope §3(21), Limited-Scope §3(21) and so on. On Linked-In there are lively discussions about it, articles are being published on it on Morningstar.com and an unfortunate result is some general confusion from a lot of Advisors of ERISA plans on what all of this is and what they should or should not be calling themselves or doing, not to mention what they’re allowed to do or not allowed to do under their Broker/Dealer contract if they are a registered rep. For that reason, we have created a new piece as an attempt to simplify and consolidate the most recent array of terminology.

Select the following link to view the complete document – Fiduciary…A Different "F" Word.

What Drives ERISA Plan Service Provider Changes Now

The article recently published in PlanSponsor Magazine, entitled, "After the Storm: A year after the market meltdown, a new provider landscape emerges" elaborates on those factors now contributing to plan service provider changes within the ERISA clientbase. Some of the factors are highlighted below:

-“Flight to Quality” -- dependable partner
-Institutional credibility
-Committed to the business and demonstrating organizational strength and stability
-Most employers focusing intensely on their core business = less RFPs
-Fee benchmarking currently motivates many sponsors to begin a review
-Reluctance to jump ship just because of bad investment performance
-Personalize service delivery to participants
-Ease of doing business for sponsors and participants
-Fiduciary support and risk management
-Ensuring adequate investment monitoring

The Fraud Conversation

Unfortunately, we all now live in a time when malicious fraudulent acts are a reality in our lives. This comes in many forms, identity theft, credit card fraud and pointedly, investment fraud. We all are affected by the scandals of the day, most recently the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme. While we at Unified Trust were not party to this or any other fraud in our 24 year history, we still have to answer the sad question of ‘I never heard of Unified Trust, how do I know you aren’t another Bernie Madoff?’. In conversations with many of our existing Advisor Partners and Advisor prospects, we are told that they are being asked the same type of question. Perhaps, this is the penalty for being independent or for being a boutique service provider or simply a reality of today’s world? In recent days, we’ve taken several steps internally to provide our clients, both Plan Sponsors and Advisors alike, assurances that when money is received by Unified Trust as a service provider that it does reach is intended destination, the Mutual Funds selected by the participants.

As a fiduciary, we advocate clients take measures to protect themselves. At a minimum, clients can do the following:

• Ask to be placed as a third party statement recipient on any accounts where money is held, such as a Mutual Fund Statement.
• Confirm with the service providers that moneys are being held by a separate body or custodian from the entity generating the reporting.
• Ask providers to supply independent source verification of the health of the organization they select. These can be balance sheets, audit records and the like.

Unified Trust has produced a ‘client approved’ article that discusses some of the causes of the Madoff scheme and what clients can do to protect themselves.

Click here to read the article—How UTC Prevents Investment Fraud

Additionally, earlier this year, Unified Trust launched a due diligence website where Plan Sponsors and Advisors can find links to independent sources of information on Unified Trust, Trust Companies and the Trust system. Here you will find:

• Independent Verification of Unified Trust Company’s CEFEX certification for Fiduciary Best Practices
• Department of Labor Oversight
• FDIC Trust Examination Manual
• Unified Trust Company Quarterly Call Reports Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (“FFIEC”) Central Data Repository
• Fiduciary360 Fiduciary Best Practices Home Page
• U.S. Office of the Controller of Currency (“OCC”) Unified Trust Company Governance
• Most recent SAS 70 Audit Report
• Most recent Unified Financial Services, Inc. Audit Report

To access the due diligence site, please logon to http://www.unifiedtrust.com/advisor and select the Conduct Corporate Due Diligence link under the Account Information link on the left side of the page.

Fiduciary Delegation - Myth or Reality?

I get asked about this quite often, so I thought it would be a good topic for discussion here. Specifically, the question that I get asked is whether or not Fiduciary Liability (not responsibility or status) can in fact be transferred from a Plan Sponsor or business owner onto another entity or not. Below, I will try and tackle this question appropriately so that it makes sense for all who may be interested.

The notion that fiduciary responsibility and liability cannot be delegated is explicitly false under law. ERISA itself makes this clear, DOL regulations make it clearer, and case law reinforces it. The most obvious way to delegate is simply to hire someone else to be in charge. For example, when one of our clients prudently hires and monitors Unified Trust as discretionary trustee, the client should be able to effectively delegate much of its fiduciary responsibility with respect to plan assets and the client should not be liable for Unified’s acts and omissions as discretionary trustee. The client simply has a fiduciary responsibility to prudently hire and appoint Unified and to monitor our performance as discretionary trustee.

Another path to delegation is through an ERISA investment manager. ERISA section 3(38) defines an investment manager as any fiduciary (other than a trustee or a named fiduciary):

• who has the power to manage, acquire, or dispose of any asset of a plan;
• is a Registered Investment Advisor (RIA), bank or insurance company;
• has acknowledged in writing that he/she is a fiduciary with respect to the plan.

A named fiduciary can appoint and delegate certain plan functions to an investment manager (pursuant to ERISA section 402(c)(3)) and not be liable for the acts and omissions of the investment manager (pursuant to ERISA section 405(d)(1)). Of course, the one caveat is that the appointment of the investment manager must be prudent and this responsibility lies solely with the appointing fiduciary, typically the Plan Sponsor. Click here to read an article previously published in the Journal of Financial Planning that goes into detail on this very topic and how it can benefit Plan Sponsors.

To Summarize:
Myth – You Can’t delegate fiduciary responsibility

• This is false. Delegation is perfectly legal under ERISA……just rarely done in actual practice.
• Several sections under ERISA specifically outline how delegation would occur. These are sections 402c, 403a, 405(c)(1)/405(c)(2)/405(d)405(c)(1)/405(c)(2)/405(d)(1).
  

402(c) – Formally Divides duties among named fiduciaries
403(a)1 – Formally delegate to a Corporate Trustee
403(a)2 and 402(c)(3) – Formally delegate to an Investment Manager
405(c)(1)/405(c)(2)/405(d)(1) – Formally delegate duties of a named fiduciary to another fiduciary (who is not named) – I.E. Independent Fiduciary
405(d)(1)) – “named fiduciaries are not liable for the acts and omissions of other named fiduciaries” if those fiduciaries have been prudently appointed and retained.

• Based on the above if the plan sponsor delegates the role of trustee to a Corporate (fully discretionary) trustee and does so prudently, that plan sponsor is not responsible for the acts and omissions of that trustee. This includes the delegation of prudently selecting and monitoring investments.
• Bottom-Line – No one can fully remove the Plan Sponsor’s fiduciary role or ALL of its responsibilities, but parts of it can be outsourced to professional fiduciaries including the role of discretionary trustee. The client in this environment transfers liability to this discretionary trustee. This is generally a good thing. The client is still the Plan Sponsor and named administrator and thus is still responsible for settler/ministerial functions as well as prudently hiring and monitoring service providers including the outsourced trustee service.