Advisory Opinions

Whether the Missouri Pacific Employees' Health Association (MPEHA) is an applicable employee welfare benefit plan within the meaning of section 3(1) of Title I of ERISA; although previous advisement offered that MPEHA was subject to Opinion 90-11A, which concluded "MPEHA is not an employee welfare benefit plan within the meaning of section 3(1) of Title I of ERISA."

Whether the St. Anne's Maternity Home in Los Angeles, California, an institution of the Congregation of the Franciscan Sisters of the Sacred Heart employee pension plan is a church plan within the meaning of section 3(33) of Title I of ERISA, and thereby excluded from the requirements of Title I of ERISA pursuant to section 4(b)(2) and is not required to comply with the provisions of Title I of ERISA.

Whether a plan's receipt of the Core Fund's Form N-1A and the Additional Information complies with the prospectus disclosure requirement of paragraph (d) of section II of PTE 77-4.

Whether St. Francis College of Fort Wayne, Inc. which is a college of the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration College's employee benefit plans are church plans within the meaning of section 3(33) of Title I of ERISA and are thus excluded from ERISA Title I requirements by section 4(b)(2) of ERISA.

Whether the Labor Management Cooperation Committee Trust, which was established in accordance with the Labor Management Cooperation Act of 1978 by the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting Industry, Local Union 598, AFL-CIO (Local 598) and the employers’ signatory to the Local 598 Collective Bargaining Agreement, as revised December 1991, is an employee welfare benefit plan within the meaning of section 3(1) of Title I of ERISA.

Whether VIZ Manufacturing Company’s Savings and Investment Profit-Sharing Plan can apply the "qualified domestic relations order" (QDRO) exception to the anti-assignment and alienation rules contained in section 206(d)(3) of Title I of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) and sections 401(a)(13)(B) and 414(p) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (the Code).

Whether contributions to a purported grantor trust (the Trust) which is designed to offset liability for post-retirement benefits in accordance with Financial Accounting Standards Board Statement 106 (FAS 106) would constitute plan assets under Title I of ERISA.

Whether Universities Research Association, Inc. has established or maintains an employee pension benefit plan within the meaning of section 3(2) of Title I of ERISA with regard to either the "retirement annuity contracts" or the "supplemental retirement annuity contracts" made available to employees of Fermilab under the annuity program.

Whether the Screen Actors Guild, Inc. (SAG) and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) Industry Advancement and Cooperative Fund provides benefits to its participants and beneficiaries and is an employee welfare benefit plan within the meaning of section 3(1) of Title I of ERISA.

Whether PTE 80-26 is applicable to a loan to a plan which is used solely for the payment of benefits to a beneficiary of such plan in accordance with the terms of a QDRO, provided all of the other conditions of the exemption are met.