COURT FALLOUT: Future of cash balance plans in question; All hybrids imperiled if IBM age discrimination ruling is upheld.(News)

Pensions & Investments, August, 2003

Byline: Fred Williams Most cash balance plans would be illegal if a federal judge's opinion that IBM Corp.'s plan violates federal age discrimination laws is upheld and becomes the accepted legal standard. On July 31, U.S. District Judge G. Patrick Murphy of the Southern District of Illinois, East St.

Louis, held that IBM's plan violated the age discrimination provisions of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974. Steve Kerstein, leader of the global retirement practice for Towers Perrin, Stamford, Conn., said if the IBM case did become the standard, "it would make nearly all cash balance and many other hybrid plans illegal, significantly harming the U.S. pension system and millions of plan participants.'' But the IBM case might be an...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Premium Content Partnership | HighBeam Research provides an in-depth online archive library of reference works.