Questions are often raised about who is entitled to death or survivor benefits from a federally regulated employee benefit plan, whether for federal employees, or for private employees by a plan governed by ERISA. The following principles generally resolve these questions: • Federal law does...

This article explores the influence of the pension system on corporate governance, which has so far received little attention in the corporate law literature. While the shareholder-centric view of corporate governance is strong today, this is a relatively recent development. “Managerial...

Most Americans will lack the financial resources to be secure and relatively satisfied upon retirement, and commentators increasingly recognize that this “retirement crisis” calls for policy changes affecting both active participants in the workforce and retirees. Nevertheless, some proposed...

Americans now hold trillions of dollars in individual retirement savings accounts, raising concerns about conflicts of interest among financial advisers who provide advice to retirement savers. Prompted by these concerns, in April 2016 the Department of Labor promulgated a rule that imposes on...

This article calls attention to the Department of Labor's imposition of the “prudent investor rule” on financial advisers to retirement savers. The article also canvasses the customary role of an investment policy statement in promoting compliance with the prudent investor rule by...

New Jersey has a deep pension-funding crisis. It has made excessively generous pension promises without funding them; simultaneously, it has run up some of the highest debts, lowest credit ratings, highest tax rates, lowest citizen satisfaction rates, and highest out-migration rates of any...

The high profile bankruptcy filing by the City of Detroit, Michigan, has brought to the fore the relationship between pension underfunding and the financial difficulties faced by an increasing number of municipalities and states in the United States. The problem is likely to continue to grow...

This Article explores the influence of the pension system on corporate governance, which has so far received little attention in the corporate law literature. While the shareholder-centric view of corporate governance is strong today, this is a relatively recent development. “Managerial...