Advisory Opinions

Whether the employers who have adopted the Plan are required under 29 C.F.R. §§2520.103-3 and 2520.103-9 to include with their annual reports copies of Schedule A's for insurance contracts in which assets of the Plan's Fixed Income Fund are invested.

Whether the execution of the master purchase agreement and the buying of the purchase contracts from ROLM will not constitute prohibited transactions under section 406 of ERISA or section 4975 of the Code, and whether the services performed by Account Executives of Federal Leasing in the processing of purchase contracts from ROLM, and the use of Federal Leasing employees to handle the billing and collection of payments on contracts purchased by the Plan do not constitute prohibited transactions under section 406 of ERISA and section 4975 of the Code by reason of section 408(b)(2) of ERISA and section 4975(d)(2) of the Code.

Whether the Vulcan Lead Products Co. Short Term Disability Benefit Plan (the Program). constitutes a payroll practice within the meaning of 29 C.F.R. §2510.3-1(b)(2) rather than an employee welfare benefit plan described in section 3(1) of ERISA and is thus excluded from ERISA title I coverage.

Whether the Express-News Federal Credit Union (the Credit Union) Group Legal Services Plan, which provides prepaid legal services to member of the Credit Union, is an employee welfare benefit plan within the meaning of section 3(1) of title I of ERISA.

Whether the UFT Welfare Fund Prescription Drug Plan (the Drug Plan) is an employee welfare benefit plan within the meaning of section 3(1) of ERISA, and covered by title I of ERISA and the effect of certain provisions of ERISA, or is a governmental plan within the meaning of section 3(32) of ERISA and therefore exempt from coverage under title I?

Whether the proposed merger of the Retirement Plan and the Hourly Plan would permit these plans to be treated as a single continuing plan for the purpose of applying ERISA sections 407(a)(2) and 407(a)(3) so that the Merged Plan will be deemed to satisfy the holding and acquisition rules of those provisions if the fair market value of the aggregate shares of qualifying employer securities in the Retirement Plan and the Hourly Plan respectively as of any date after 1974 was 10 percent or less of the fair market value of the aggregate assets of each plan.

Whether a fiduciary who receives full-time pay from an employer association acting on behalf of a group of employers as a sponsor of an employee benefit plan, where employees of the contributing employers are participants in the plan, would be precluded under section 408(c)(2) from receiving compensation from a plan for his services as trustee.

Whether the purchases and sales of stock of the Philadelphia Saving Fund Society (PSFS) by self-directed individual retirement accounts (IRAs) and self-directed Keogh plans for which PSFS acts as custodian or trustee violate the prohibited transaction provisions of section 406 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) and section 4975 of the Internal Revenue Code (the Code).

Whether Associated Advertising Agency, Inc. is a party in interest under section 3(14) of ERISA or a disqualified person under section 4975(e)(2) of the Code with respect to the IRA established on behalf of Mr. Preston D. Huston, an officer, director of Associated, and, as a result, whether the lease between the IRA and Associated constitutes a prohibited transaction under section 406 of ERISA or 4975 of the Code.

Whether the use by the Bank of its in-house discount brokerage for plans it serves as trustee would not constitute a violation of section 406(b)(1) of ERISA if the authorization to use such services was made in advance by an account manager or based on a standing instruction.