January 25, 1999

FIVE BENEFITS PROFESSIONALS NAMED TO ERISA ADVISORY COUNCIL

Archived News Release — Caution: Information may be out of date.

Secretary of Labor Alexis M. Herman today announced the appointment of five new members to the Advisory Council on Employee Welfare and Pension Benefit Plans who will represent various sectors of the employee benefits field.

January 25, 1999

Memphis Pension Plan Officials Sued By Labor Department

Archived News Release — Caution: Information may be out of date.

The U.S. Department of Labor filed a lawsuit against the American Technical Institute of Memphis, Tenn. alleging that the institute failed to timely transmit employee and employer contributions owed to the institute’s money purchase pension plan.

January 19, 1999

MISSOURI WELFARE PLAN EMPLOYEE INDICTED FOR EMBEZZLING FUND ASSETS

Archived News Release — Caution: Information may be out of date.

The director of the health and welfare fund of the International Leather Goods, Plastics, Novelty and Service Workers’ Union in St. Louis, Mo., was indicted on three counts of embezzling approximately $4,500 from the fund.

January 4, 1999

Public Hearing Set On Proposed Claims Procedures

Archived News Release — Caution: Information may be out of date.

The U.S. Department of Labor today announced its intention to hold a public hearing Feb.17 and 18 and, if necessary Feb. 19, 1999, on a proposed rule governing employee benefit claims procedures.

December 30, 1998

Madison Wis. Corporate Trustee Ordered To Restore More Than $50,000 To Plan For Federal Pension Law Violations

Archived News Release — Caution: Information may be out of date.

The corporate trustee of a 401(k) and profit sharing plan in Madison, Wis., was ordered to restore more than $50,000 to the plan for making imprudent investments on participants’ behalf and for authorizing the plan to engage in conflict-of-interest transactions in violation of the federal pension law.

December 29, 1998

Court Grants Preliminary Injunction, Continuing Freeze Of Assets Of Trustees And Administrator Of New York-Based Health Program

Archived News Release — Caution: Information may be out of date.

(Also issued from New York as NY 232 on Dec. 28, with the following headline -Federal Court Names Independent Fiduciary to Take Over Elmont, New York-Based Health Insurance Plan — Affiliated with Firm Based in Great Neck, Plan Owes $25 Million in Claims in 32 States)

December 22, 1998

Judge's Ruling Concludes Final Piece Of Lawsuit Against Multiple Employer Welfare Plan Sued For Unpaid Claims

Archived News Release — Caution: Information may be out of date.

In an opinion handed down in the federal district court in Orlando, a long-running lawsuit of the U.S. Department of Labor against the Orlando-based Reinecke Agency, doing business as Dealers Association Plan (DAP), is essentially concluded.

December 18, 1998

Engineering Executives Ordered To Repay Company Pension Plan

Archived News Release — Caution: Information may be out of date.

A federal court ordered a Norcross, Ga. couple to pay $66,472 over four years to a pension plan sponsored by the Harris Engineering firm as restitution for using the plan’s assets to make a series of imprudent loans to friends and associates.

December 18, 1998

DOCTOR AND WIFE PLEAD GUILTY TO PENSION PLAN FRAUD

Archived News Release — Caution: Information may be out of date.

A Bucks County, Penn. doctor and his wife pleaded guilty of conspiring to unlawfully use of employee benefit funds and to money laundering. Their pleas were entered Dec. 14 before Judge William H. Yohn, Jr. in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

December 15, 1998

Overland Park Businessman Pleads Guilty To 401(K) Plan Embezzlement

Archived News Release — Caution: Information may be out of date.

The former owner of an Overland Park, Kan. company pleaded guilty to a one-count information charging him with embezzling assets from his company’s 401(k) plan. According to the guilty plea filed Dec.11, Allen Sander, acting as sole trustee of the Shamrock Services Company Employees’ Saving Plan, a 401(k) defined contribution plan, allegedly embezzled plan assets, including employee contributions between July 1991 and January 1996. The plan covered 15 employees.

December 15, 1998

EBSA Press Release: Court Freezes Assets of New York Health Program [12/15/1998]

Archived News Release — Caution: Information may be out of date.

For more information call: (202) 219-8921

The Department of Labor has obtained a temporary restraining order freezing the assets of the trustees of the International Workers' Guild health plan, two affiliated organizations and their principals for mismanaging the assets of the health plan covering participants in 21 states.

December 15, 1998

St. Paul Corporation Sued By Labor Department For Violating Federal Pension Law

Archived News Release — Caution: Information may be out of date.

The U.S. Department of Labor filed a lawsuit alleging that a St. Paul corporation inappropriately valued its own common stock held as an investment by one of its two corporate pension plans at book rather than fair market value.

December 14, 1998

Labor Department Issues Additional Guidance To Employee Benefit Plans On Y2K Compliance

Archived News Release — Caution: Information may be out of date.

The U.S. Department of Labor's Pension and Welfare Benefits Administration took a major step today to address concerns of the employee benefit industry about fiduciary liability and the Year 2000 (Y2K) computer problem. To help the benefit community understand these issues, the agency is releasing sample questions used by the agency's investigators to evaluate Y2K compliance in the course of civil investigations of benefit plans across the United States.

December 14, 1998

Chicago Teamsters' Plan Trustees To Restore $20 Million To Pension Plan

Archived News Release — Caution: Information may be out of date.

Trustees to employee benefit plans of Local 705 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in Chicago have agreed to restore $20 million owed to the local union’s pension plan by an affiliated welfare plan under a consent order and judgment obtained by the U. S. Department of Labor.

The restitution returns $16,511,985 to the pension plan which the trustees improperly transferred to the welfare benefit plan, plus interest.

December 14, 1998

Labor Department Lawsuit Names Printing Company Executives

Archived News Release — Caution: Information may be out of date.

The owner of a St. Joseph, Mo. printing company and his manager have been sued by the U.S. Department of Labor for failing to forward $6,024 in contributions deducted from employee paychecks to the company’s 401(k) defined contribution plan.

December 10, 1998

Labor Department Proposes Amendments To Annual Reporting Regulations

Archived News Release — Caution: Information may be out of date.

The U.S. Department of Labor has proposed amendments to its annual reporting regulations under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) to conform the regulations to the new streamlined Form 5500, schedules and instructions. The new Form 5500 will be implemented for employee benefit plans starting with 1999 plan year filings.

December 10, 1998

Latham, New York, Profit-Sharing-Plan Trustee Ordered To Appoint New Trustees

Archived News Release — Caution: Information may be out of date.

The trustee of a profit sharing plan covering the employees of General Steel Fabricators, Inc. in Latham, New York, agreed to appoint a successor trustee to manage the plan under the terms of a consent order and judgment obtained by the U.S. Department of Labor.

The trustee has already restored $42,521.20 to the plan, which will be credited to the accounts of eligible participants.

December 8, 1998

San Francisco Investment Management Firm Pays More Than $13 Million In Pension Settlement

Archived News Release — Caution: Information may be out of date.

The San Francisco investment firm of McMorgan and Co. has paid more than $13.7 million, including interest, to 10 pension plans as part of a negotiated settlement, the U.S. Department of Labor announced today.

December 8, 1998

Mortgage Broker Arrested For Pension Plan Fraud

Archived News Release — Caution: Information may be out of date.

Michael Ted McKendree, 39, of Corte Madera, Cal., was arrested today by Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation on an eleven-count indictment returned on December 2, 1998, by a Federal Grand Jury in San Francisco. McKendree was indicted for allegedly embezzling funds from a pension plan covered by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) and for mail fraud.

December 4, 1998

Labor Department Seeks To Have Independent Trustee Named To Liquidate Florida 401(K) Plan

Archived News Release — Caution: Information may be out of date.

The U.S. Department of Labor filed a lawsuit today to appoint an independent trustee to terminate and distribute the assets of a 401(k) plan sponsored by the Hollywood, Fla.-based Carolina Fitness Equipment, Inc. (CFE).