Spencer Fane offers a full range of services for multiemployer retirement and welfare plans. Our team’s wealth of experience with multiemployer plans across various industries, along with our skill and knowledge of employee benefits allows us to represent our multiemployer plan clients in all areas of legal compliance, so the trustees can focus on providing benefits to participants. Additionally, we understand the complexities of collective bargaining and the requirements of Taft-Hartley, which is essential to the success of multiemployer plans.
Our services include drafting and amending plan documents and trust agreements, collecting delinquent employer contributions, assisting in plan interpretation, claims and appeals, and drafting participant forms and notices. We work closely with boards of trustees, plan administrators, and other plan professionals on day-to-day matters, as well as long-range strategic planning. We also regularly advise multiemployer pension funds on withdrawal liability, funding and disclosure rules, and assist funds in “endangered” or “critical” status with the development of funding improvement or rehabilitation plans. We provide full-scope compliance services for welfare plans to ensure the requirements of ERISA, HIPAA, COBRA, and other applicable laws are satisfied and we routinely guide our clients through DOL and IRS audits, to satisfactory results.
In addition to our historical perspective of the regulations and laws regulating multiemployer plans, Spencer Fane attorneys stay at the forefront of present day factors impacting clients, from federal health care reform to new state laws. Our longevity plus our knowledge of recent changes position our attorneys to best serve clients.
When trustees of multiemployer plans retain Spencer Fane, they receive the benefit of the entire Employee Benefits team as well as attorneys in areas throughout the firm in related practice areas from Litigation to Health Care. With this deep bench, our team can help clients navigate the broad range of issues they face when providing benefits to participants.
Representative Experience
- Represented several multiemployer plan clients in audits by the DOL and IRS, to successful completion.
- Litigated numerous successful ERISA cases including a collections matter involving an alter ego theory requiring a signatory contractor to pay its delinquent contributions to the plan.
- Served as general fund counsel to a range of multiemployer health and welfare plans across the construction and service industries during the implementation of health care reform and brought all plans into compliance with the range of Affordable Care Act and Mental Health Parity mandates.