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SEATTLE - The U.S. Department of Labor
today announced that a settlement agreement and consent order have been entered
in the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii, Honolulu, which resolves
the department’s suit against GMP Associates, Inc., and its president
Wagdy Guirguis for alleged violations of the Employee Retirement Income
Security Act (ERISA), the federal pension law, relating to their administration
of the GMP Associates, Inc., 401(k) Profit Sharing Plan. GMP Associates, Inc.,
and its wholly-owned subsidiaries GMP Holding, Inc., GMP Construction, Inc.,
and GMP Construction Guam, Inc., provided architectural and engineering
services to their clients.
According to David Ganz, Los Angeles regional
director for the Pension and Welfare Benefits Administration (PWBA), the
defendants will pay the Plan at least $169,235 representing an estimate of the
amount of employee contributions, employer matching contributions and
participant loan repayments owed to the Plan, plus interest caluculated through
Feb. 1, 1999.
On Dec. 30, 1998, the Labor Dept. filed its
lawsuit allenging that GMP and Guirguis breached the fiduciary responsibilities
imposed upom them under ERISA by engaging in a pattern of withholding employee
contributions from participants’ paychecks and then failing to forward
these contributions to the Plan within the time period required by Department
of Labor regulations. Similarly, the department alleged that the defendants
failed to collect for the Plan loan repayments which were withheld from
employee paychecks and GMP’s required 1995 matching pension plan
contribution.
In addition to the restoration of any losses
suffered by the Plan, under the terms of today’s consent order, the
defendants agreed to step down as fiduciaries of the Plan and to appoint an
independent fiduciary with full discretionary authority to administer the Plan.
Further, the defendants are enjoined from serving as fiduciaires to any
employee benefit plan covered by ERISA and are responsibile for all costs
associated with the appointment and retention of the independent fiduciary,
Ganz said.
Following the appointment of the independent
fiduciary, the defendants will provide any additional documents needed to
permit an accurate calculation of the total amount due the Plan, he added.
The original court filing and today’s
subsequent settlement and consent order resulted from an investigation
conducted by the Los Angeles PWBA Regional Office, headed by Ganz, which
enforces ERISA.
Not to editors: Civil Action File No. 98-01023
HG
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