Practice Capabilities

ERISA
Pension plans continue to constitute one of the single largest sources of investment capital in the world. Adherence to the complex array of requirements imposed under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) necessitate sophisticated legal advice to ensure compliance with respect to plan sponsors, investors, participants, administrators and operators. 

Loeb & Loeb LLP is experienced in the day-to-day review and negotiation of a wide array of investment and other transactions involving employee benefit plans. We counsel clients on the activities of their plans and their plans' investment funds. We regularly apprise clients regarding permitted and prohibited transactions and, as required, assist in negotiating individual exemptions from the U.S. Department of Labor. Should a plan matter involve litigation, attorneys in the firm's Litigation Group are adept at representing clients in such actions.

Employee Benefits
Our Employee Benefits capabilities include assisting employers in establishing, maintaining, revising and terminating their employee benefit plans. We serve as both consultant and technician to our clients by advising them on the legal aspects of their plans as well as the relevant industry and competitor trends. We also design and draft plans, prepare plan documentation and assist our clients in navigating the complex reporting and disclosure requirements mandated under ERISA, the Internal Revenue Code and applicable securities laws. We regularly assist clients in regard to funding, liability and withdrawal liability issues under their own plans and also under union-sponsored multiemployer plans.

Our experience is not limited to tax-qualified retirement plans. We help clients understand the scope and limitations of their tax-qualified plans and also advise them in further addressing the needs of their employees with regard to nonqualified retirement plans, welfare plans and retiree welfare arrangements. Our clients look to us regularly for advice on the establishment, negotiation and operation of appropriate funding mechanisms, including individual and master trusts, rabbi trusts, secular trusts, VEBAs and insurance-based arrangements. We have also assisted clients in realizing significant cash flow savings through the implementation of "early retirement window plans," the reallocation of surplus pension plan assets, the reduction or termination of retiree welfare plans and the creative use of insurance-based products. We also have experience in assisting clients whose plans are policyholders in demutualizing mutual insurance companies. Clients routinely choose Loeb & Loeb to help ensure that the administration and investment procedures for their plans and their plans' investments comply with all currently applicable and new requirements.

We also assist clients in obtaining advisory opinions from the U.S. Department of Labor, private letter rulings from the Internal Revenue Service and in responding to Internal Revenue Service and U.S. Department of Labor audits.

Clients and Industries
Our clients include employers and plan sponsors in a wide variety of for-profit industries as well as plan fiduciaries, investment managers, banks, insurance companies, business associations, not-for-profit institutions, buyers and sellers of businesses, lenders, borrowers, investors and investment fund managers and individual executives.

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