Deals & People March 27, 2020

Retirement Industry People Moves

Cohen & Buckmann adds counsel to Employee Benefits & ERISA practice; Penn Mutual hires portfolio managers for balanced income strategy; and retirement services leader of Millennium Trust retires.

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Art by Subin Yang

Art by Subin Yang

Cohen & Buckmann Adds Counsel to Employee Benefits & ERISA Practice

Cohen & Buckmann P.C. has expanded its Employee Benefits & ERISA [Employee Retirement Income Security Act] and Executive Compensation practices with the addition of Emily Meyer as counsel.

Meyer provides advice and counsel on ERISA, COBRA, HIPAA [Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996], the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Code Section 409A compliance, and drafting nonqualified deferred compensation (NQDC), equity, and severance arrangements. She guides her clients through the compensation and benefits issues that arise in the context of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) and other business transactions and the fiduciary and prohibited transaction issues related to ERISA plan asset investments.

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Additionally, Meyer’s practice includes negotiating employment agreements and executive compensation packages on behalf of employers and executives. 

 “We are thrilled to have an experienced attorney like Emily join Cohen & Buckmann,” says Sandra Cohen, co-founding partner of the firm. “She deepens our bench of attorneys who practice in our primary practice areas.”

Meyer earned a bachelor’s degree from Rice University and her Juris Doctor degree from the University of Virginia School of Law, where she served on the Virginia Tax Review editorial board.

Penn Mutual Hires Portfolio Managers for Balance Income Strategy

Penn Mutual Asset Management has added two seasoned portfolio managers to the investment team.

George J. Cipolloni III, CFA, and Mark J. Saylor, CFA, will be primarily responsible for portfolio management, security research, trading and client communications surrounding the firm’s new balanced income strategy.

Cipolloni and Saylor previously served as senior portfolio managers at Chartwell Investment Partners and managed the Berwyn Income Fund1 and Nedgroup Global Cautious Fund strategies until February 2019. Prior to its acquisition by Chartwell, Cipolloni and Saylor spent more than a decade as co-portfolio managers, research analysts, investment committee members and minority shareholders at The Killen Group.

Penn Mutual Asset Management’s new balanced income strategy will serve as a contrarian, conservative allocation approach that intends to provide investors with current income while seeking to preserve capital. The strategy will attempt to deliver positive, risk-adjusted returns from both security selection and asset allocation. Under the management of Cipolloni and Saylor, the firm will also be launching an institutional mutual fund in the near future that complements the firm’s existing product lineup.

“The launch of our new balanced income strategy is the next evolution of our fixed income offerings in the institutional marketplace,” notes Chris Fanelli, managing director, business development at Penn Mutual Asset Management. “George and Mark’s successful track record in managing balanced income strategies will prove invaluable in our efforts to generate consistent, risk-adjusted returns for our clients.”

 Retirement Services Leader of Millennium Trust Retires

Millennium Trust has announced that its managing director of retirement services, Terry Dunne, will retire effective April 1.

According to the firm, Chief Growth Officer Erik Beck has been working with Dunne and the Retirement Services team to ensure a seamless transition for clients. Millennium Trust says it will announce when a successor is identified.

“After spending the past 15 years committed to the success of Millennium Trust and our clients in the retirement industry, I’m excited about this next chapter in life —my own retirement,” Dunne says. “I am proud of the sales and service teams that we have built here, who always put our clients first, and I am very confident that this firm will continue to succeed because of its outstanding culture and values. I want to sincerely thank everyone who has supported our mission of increasing retirement readiness for Americans.”

Compliance March 27, 2020

Parties in Asset-Based Fee Suit Against Nationwide Settle

At one point, the plaintiff was proposing a defendant class of all sponsors of smaller 401(k) plans that entered into program agreements with Nationwide through its Retirement Flexible Advantage Retirement Plans Program.

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A lawsuit that had sought the return of “excessive and unreasonable asset-based fees” charged by Nationwide for recordkeeping and administrative services, “and to prevent Nationwide from charging those excessive fees in the future,” has been dismissed “with prejudice.”

“With prejudice” in the legal sense means the case is permanently dismissed and cannot be brought back to court. According to the stipulation filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, as grounds for the dismissal, the parties say they have reached a confidential settlement resolving all claims.

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The original suit called out a plan sponsor for potentially breaching the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) by willingly entering into an arrangement with Nationwide, but it did not actually name the plan sponsor, law firm Andrus Wagstaff PC, as a defendant. Upon the court’s order, a second amended complaint was filed naming the law firm as a defendant.

The plaintiff proposed two classes for the lawsuit, which Chief U.S. District Judge Edmund A. Sargus Jr. rejected. There was a defendant class proposed to be represented by Andrus Wagstaff. It was described as all sponsors of participant-directed individual 401(k) plan accounts during the class period that had total plan assets of less than $10 million; that entered into program agreements with Nationwide for recordkeeping and other administrative services through Nationwide’s Retirement Flexible Advantage Retirement Plans Program; and that paid recordkeeping and administrative service fees to Nationwide in excess of $64 per participant.

Sargus found the defendant class members did not share a judicial link and the plaintiff did not have standing to sue each individual plaintiff. He said the plaintiff’s alleged injury—excessive fees—was not traceable to a specific provision of the shared contract. In addition, he said, the plaintiff presented no evidence to suggest that the defendants in the class acted in concert when investing the terms of their proposed plan agreements.

There also was a plaintiff class proposed of all participant-directed individual 401(k) plan accounts during the class period that had total plan assets of less than $10 million; paid Nationwide for recordkeeping and other administrative services through Nationwide’s Retirement Flexible Advantage Retirement Plans Program; and paid recordkeeping and administrative service fees to Nationwide in excess of $64 per participant. Sargus ruled that the named plaintiff had no standing to sue a class of defendants that had in no way injured her.

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