Advisory Opinions

Whether a retirement and death benefit arrangement (the Plan) for members of the Denver Fire Fighters Protective Association (the Association), is not a governmental plan but an employee benefit plan covered by Title I of ERISA.

Whether Capital Trust Company, a trust company subject to supervision and examination by the Superintendent of Banks of the State of Oregon as a financial institution will be a “bank” for purposes of the Department of Labor’s PTE 80-51, when it acts as a trustee under a common trust fund established for investment by employee benefit plans.

Whether the prohibited transaction provisions of sections 406 and 407 of ERISA apply to certain transactions involving the Husky Oil Company, the Employees’ Retirement Plan of Husky Oil Company (Retirement Plan) and the Employees’ Pension Plan of Husky Oil Company (Pension Plan) and the predecessor to both the Retirement and Pension Plans.

Whether the Individual Retirement Account (IRA) payroll deduction program adopted by Cascade Natural Gas Corporation (Cascade) is an employee benefit plan within the meaning of section 3(3) of ERISA. Specifically, whether the escrow account set up for the deposit of employee contributions constitutes an employee benefit plan.

Whether under certain circumstances a payroll deduction program for an Individual Retirement Account (IRA) offered by Madison National Bank will be an employee pension benefit plan within the meaning of section 3(2) of ERISA, what constitutes an affiliate of an employer, and when an employer is not considered to have endorsed an IRA program under Department of Labor’s regulation 29 CFR section 2510.3-2(d).

Whether the Department of Labor would (1) reconsider its Advisory Opinion 82-2A, which stated that the Truman Medical Center Retirement Plan (the Plan) was not a governmental plan within the meaning of section 3(32) of ERISA, (2) not implement that opinion until the Pension Benefit Guaranty completes its reconsideration of its determination that the Plan is not a governmental plan, and/or (3) delay the effective date of those decisions.

Whether the prohibited transaction rules of ERISA allow the full-time international representative of an international union to be compensated for services performed as administrator of multiemployer plans negotiated by the local chapter (and member) of the same international union

Whether an employee benefit plan required by its plan documents to have more than 50 percent of its assets invested in qualifying employer securities will satisfy the requirement of ERISA section 407(d)(6) of ERISA that an employee stock ownership plan must be designed to invest primarily in qualify employer securities.

Whether the Retail Employee’s Local 919 and Contributing Employers’ Food Pension Trust (Local 919 Trust), created by collective bargaining to receive contributions from at least three employers is a multiemployer plan under section 3(37) of ERISA, as amended by the Multiemployer Pension Plan Amendments Act of 1980, and Department of Labor regulation 29 CFR § 2510.3-37.

Whether the Baytown Mutual Benefit Association (MBA), established to furnish medical services to its members, and which has a clinic with doctors, a laboratory, an x-ray department and a pharmacy, is an employee welfare benefit plan as defined by section 3(1) of title I of ERISA, established or maintained by an employee organization, as defined in section 3(4) of ERISA, and whether section 514 of ERISA preempts an opinion from the office of the Attorney General of the State of Texas.