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Compliance November 30, 2006
DoL Provides Multiemployer Plan Election Model Notice
November 30, 2006 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - 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.
Reported by Rebecca Moore
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.
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 .