Employee Benefits
Today's market conditions have made it increasingly difficult for employers to provide meaningful benefit plans while managing risks and costs. Our Employee Benefits specialists provide legal counsel that helps our clients win the loyalty of its most talented employees while balancing the need for cost and risk management. Whether in the context of solving a complex compliance issue or designing a competitive benefit plan structure, our services are aimed at helping you maintain benefit programs that will contribute to your company's profitability and growth.
Our employee benefits services include:
- Design and implementation of qualified retirement plans, including Employee Stock Ownership Plans, 401(k) plans, 403(b) plans, defined benefit pension plans and hybrid plans that combine the features of more than one of these types of plans.
- Health and other welfare benefit plan consulting, including compliance with COBRA, HIPAA and ERISA reporting and disclosure requirements.
- Employee benefits consulting in connection with acquisitions and divestitures.
- Compliance reviews for qualified retirement plans.
- Assistance with correction of plan administration errors either through “self-correction” or through formal applications with government agencies.
- Nonqualified deferred compensation and retirement plan documentation, tax consulting and compliance, including compliance with 409A requirements.
- Design, implementation and consulting with respect to equity compensation arrangements such as: nonqualified stock options plans, incentive stock options plans, restricted stock awards and employee stock purchase programs.
- Representation of clients before the Department of Labor, the IRS and other government agencies.
- Executive employment agreements, including tax planning under the 280G golden parachute payment rules and consulting regarding the limit on deductible compensation.
- Defending employers in employee benefit plan litigation.
In addition to providing the above services for our business clients, Howard & Howard has an extensive practice in representing clients with respect to issues involving multi-employer benefit plans. Businesses using union labor in the construction and maintenance of facilities frequently face issues relating to claims for multi-employer benefit and welfare contributions. These issues involve the proper payment of contractors to avoid trust fund and other developing theories, the handling of lien claims in order to protect title to property and an owner’s demand for appropriate fringe benefit payment bonds from contractors. We have extensive experience in all aspects of multi-employer administration and litigation, including the area of withdrawal liability. We consider our firm to be at the forefront of litigation relating to lien and bond claims by multi-employer plans.
We are proud of the accomplishments and service provided by our employee benefits attorneys. Some recent projects include:
- Consulting on the implementation of ESOPs in connection with the transition of ownership in private companies and to align employee and shareholder goals in public companies.
- Assisting hundreds of clients in complying with the recently enacted laws under 409A that govern deferred compensation plans.
- Handling all employee benefit plan aspects of numerous mergers of both private and publicly held companies.
- Legal representation of private employers “spinning off” assets from a multiple employer pension plan to a single employer plan.
- Successfully negotiated a favorable settlement in an enforcement action brought by the Department of Labor alleging numerous violations of the prohibited transaction rules under ERISA.
- The redesign of existing employment agreements and implementation of new compensation arrangements for a client anticipating a change in ownership that will help the client retain key executives in order to realize a more favorable purchase price.
Our employee benefits team always works for you with the following goals:
- Assist client in accomplishing stated objectives.
- Provide creative consulting and solutions.
- Produce timely, top-quality work.
- Assist employers in achieving their profitability and risk reduction goals.
