Trustees Ordered To Restore $65,297 To Michigan 401(K) Plan Of Engineering Firm

Archived News Release — Caution: Information may be out of date.

Cincinnati, Ohio - The U. S. Department of Labor obtained a consent order on November 27, requiring trustees of the SCA Holding Inc. sponsored 401(k) plan in Ishpeming, Michigan, to pay $65,297.29 in employer contributions to the plan and losses on delinquent employee contributions and loan repayments. The defendants already repaid $111,120.71 to the plan for delinquent employee contributions.

Defendant Darryl L. Sundberg agreed to resign immediately as a plan trustee and defendant Michael J. Pond will remain as trustee in order to terminate the plan. Sundberg and Pond cannot serve in positions of trust to any plan governed by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) in the future. The trustees also were owners and officers of SCA Holding.

The consent order resolves a suit, filed on in federal district court in Grand Rapids, Michigan, alleging that the trustees and corporations violated ERISA by failing to forward or timely transmit to the plan employee contributions deducted from paychecks during the period January 1, 1999 to November 17, 2000. The suit also alleges that defendants failed to timely forward employee loan repayments made to the plan.

SCA Holding is a survey and engineering firm, which sponsored the 401(k) plan for its employees and those of affiliates Sundberg Carlson and Associates, Inc. and SCAcomputers.com. As of December 31, 2000, the plan covered 82 participants and had $2,699,120 in assets.

This case resulted from an investigation conducted by the Cincinnati Regional Office of the Pension and Welfare Benefits Administration (PWBA). According to PWBA regional director Joseph Menez, “This case exemplifies our commitment to protect workers’ hard-earned benefits. Workers can help us protect their benefits by contacting our office at 859.578.4680 if they have questions or suspect abuse of their pension, health or other benefit plans.”

(Chao v. SCA Holding, Inc.
Civil Action No. 2:01CV195)

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Archived News Release — Caution: Information may be out of date.