Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation

Winston & Strawn attorneys apply their vast experience with ERISA’s fiduciary requirements to counsel clients in discharging their fiduciary duties under ERISA.  We assist in establishing committees, procedures, and agreements that protect the employees, officers, and directors who administer and act as fiduciaries with respect to clients’ retirement plans.

We design and assist fiduciaries in implementing retirement and welfare benefit plan investments and administrative structures that enhance:

• compliance with ERISA’s complicated fiduciary provisions
• the protection of employees and board members involved in fiduciary activities
• the exclusion from liability of employees and board members who are not fiduciaries
• the likelihood that employers or fiduciaries would prevail in any dispute arising from their duties

One of the most important issues facing the sponsor of a tax-qualified retirement or savings plan as well as the banking and investment community at large is the use of assets in such plans to make investments, including the use of REITs, REMICs, REOCs, VCOCs, and other vehicles.  Our EBEC attorneys have considerable experience in designing transactions to accommodate the special needs of tax-exempt investors.

We advise clients in all aspects of plan investment including:

• the fiduciary standards imposed by ERISA
• the unrelated business tax aspects of the investment
• whether the investment is a prohibited transaction
• whether the investment creates a “plan asset” issue under ERISA

We also have assisted clients in obtaining a number of significant administrative exemptions from the Department of Labor.