Olshan Employee Benefits Group counsels public and private businesses across a wide range of industries, helping them navigate complex planning, compliance and administration issues involving employee benefits, executive compensation and ERISA matters.
Our employee benefits attorneys work closely with clients to meet the challenge of attracting and retaining high-caliber employees by offering competitive benefit programs and in managing those programs.
We advise and represent employers and executives of companies of all sizes, including publicly and privately held corporations, limited liability companies, partnerships and startups. Members of our Employee Benefits Group regularly counsel boards of directors, compensation committees, private equity funds, hedge funds, investment managers and senior corporate executives.
Benefit Program Design and Management
Olshan employee benefits attorneys help clients attract and retain top talent by designing and administering executive compensation and employee benefit programs. These include qualified and nonqualified retirement, deferred compensation and executive incentive compensation plans; stock option, restricted stock and other equity-based and nonequity-based plans; as well as health and welfare benefit plans. Businesses also engage our attorneys to negotiate employment agreements, incentive, retention and severance benefit packages, and provide guidance on change-of-control measures that often accompany mergers, acquisitions, restructurings and dispositions.
Regulatory Compliance and Vigilance
Clients call on us to address a wide range of fiduciary compliance issues, including those associated with implementing and administering benefit plans and programs. In many cases, we partner with our Corporate/Securities Law, Employment Practices, and Tax & Personal Planning Group colleagues to assist clients in managing challenges throughout their business life cycle and to ensure that their business objectives are met and are compliant with ERISA, the Internal Revenue Code and other federal and state requirements.
Clients also rely on our attorneys to keep a close watch on regulatory updates issued by the Internal Revenue Service, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) and the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA). We keep abreast of the ever-changing federal and state laws, as well as the latest benefits-related administrative rulings and court decisions.
Our attorneys identify and resolve plan administration, documentary and fiduciary compliance issues through the IRS Employee Plans Compliance Resolution System (EPCRS), the U.S. Department of Labor’s Delinquent Filer Voluntary Correction Program (DFVCP) and the Voluntary Fiduciary Correction Program (VFCP). Should regulators challenge a client’s compliance, we provide guidance through all government audits and investigations, working to negotiate settlements and closing agreements and compliance statements, as may be applicable.
M&As and Restructurings
With a proven track record of overseeing and evaluating even the most sophisticated plan designs, clients often engage us at the outset of mergers, acquisitions and other corporate transactions to provide benefit plan-related due diligence and risk assessments. We counsel on merger, consolidation, spinoff considerations and benefit plan termination issues; advise on withdrawal liability exposure and represent clients in MPPAA arbitrations; conduct 280G and 409A analyses; and provide guidance on a range of post-merger plan integration issues. All of this enables our attorneys to leverage their experience and guide clients in crafting or updating compensation and benefit plan compliance strategies and significantly minimizing potential risks.
