Compliance May 2, 2016

Fiduciary Who Filed Bankruptcy Still Owes Retirement Plan Contributions

A retirement plan fiduciary had previously been ordered by a court to restore unremitted contributions to the plan.
Reported by

A plan fiduciary ordered to restore unremitted contributions to his now-defunct company’s retirement plan cannot discharge this debt in bankruptcy, a court has ruled.

In December 2009, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) filed a complaint in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania alleging that the fiduciaries of the Dalton Mechanical SIMPLE IRA Plan, including Scott Louis Slocum and Dalton Mechanical Inc., breached their statutory duties to the plan participants under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). From 2006 through 2009, the plan trustees specifically failed to ensure employee contributions were remitted to the plan as required by ERISA. The total amount due to the plan participants, including lost interest, was determined to be $41,093.44.

Never miss a story — sign up for PLANADVISER newsletters to keep up on the latest retirement plan adviser news.

Dalton Mechanical Services Inc. is a now defunct HVAC contractor formerly located in Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania.

In May 2011, a consent judgment was entered requiring Slocum to make payments to the plan, which he did initially. However, he fell into default subsequently with late and missed payments. The judgment also provided that if Slocum filed for bankruptcy prior to the full restitution to the plan, he would not oppose the Secretary of Labor having the debt to the plan declared non-dischargeable.

On August, 24, 2015, Slocum filed chapter 7 bankruptcy, and the department filed an adversary action. On April 4, 2016, the court entered a default judgment declaring Slocum’s debt to the plan non-dischargeable in bankruptcy. The total outstanding amount is $28,180.64.

Products May 2, 2016

Morningstar Launches Portal for Advisers

The mobile-ready portal includes customized reports of investors’ accounts and provides a more holistic view of their financial situations.
Reported by

Morningstar Inc. has launched ByAllAccounts, a personal financial management portal in the firm’s account aggregation service.

The mobile-friendly portal pulls together all of an investor’s account information and updates advisers daily to provide them with a more intuitive system for showing clients their entire balance sheets. ByAllAccounts recently tripled the number of data sources it aggregates to 15,000, including liabilities such as loans and credit card debt, to fully understand an individual’s net worth.

ByAllAccounts includes a drag-and-drop feature that looks at an investor’s total wealth, balance sheet, cash flows and asset allocation. It includes customized report generation, a document vault, and alerts that tell investors if their asset allocation is no longer in balance, funds are transferred out of an account, or a deposit is made to an account. Advisers can also customize branding of the portal and use it to analyze their entire book of business. They can also choose any of these elements as stand-alone tools.

“Morningstar has the most comprehensive data in the industry, and our new portal helps advisers, their home offices and their clients visualize that data together in a more meaningful way,” says Tricia Rothschild, head of adviser solutions for Morningstar. “Investors want to work with financial advisers who have a more holistic, or complete, view of their financial situation. Our new personal financial management portal helps advisers free up time previously spent gathering data from disparate sources, allowing them to spend that time more constructively consulting and solving problems for clients.”

«