The Labor Department has released guidance to help plan fiduciaries meet their obligations under Title I of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act to locate and distribute retirement benefits to missing or nonresponsive participants.
Labor “has been investigating plans on this issue and asserting fiduciary breaches where the plans didn’t track former employees who left account balances behind,” ERISA attorney Fred Reish, partner at Faegre Drinker in Los Angeles, told ThinkAdvisor in an email. “The private sector, eg., employer trade associations, have been complaining that the DOL hasn’t issued clear guidance on what fiduciaries need to do about former employees who can’t be located.”