Advisory Opinions

Whether the National Automatic Sprinkler Industry Welfare Fund (the Fund) is an employee welfare benefit plan within the meaning of section 3(1) the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) and/or a multiple employer welfare arrangement as described in section 3(40) of title I of ERISA.

Whether the Master Employers Trust, established in 1977 for the purpose of providing comprehensive and total dental health care to participating employers, their employees, and eligible dependents, is an employee welfare benefit plan within the meaning of section 3(1) of title I of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) and/or a multiple employer welfare arrangement under section 3(40) of ERISA, as amended by the Act of January 14, 1983 (Pub. L. 97-473).

Whether the proposed Transfer Employee Severance Pay Plan of the San Francisco Newspaper Agency (the Transfer Plan) is an employee pension benefit plan (pension plan) within the meaning of section 3(2)(A) of title I of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 or a severance pay plan which is not a pension plan under Labor Department regulation 29 C.F.R. §2510.3-2.

Whether the Euro-clear system, a central clearance system for internationally traded securities operated by the Brussels office of Morgan Guaranty, which accepts for deposit securities that are expected to be traded in international markets and allows the securities to be transferred, loaned, or pledged by bookkeeping entry without physical delivery of securities, is a "foreign clearing agency which acts as a securities depository" within the meaning of Department of Labor regulation 29 CFR §2550.404b-1(a)(2)(ii)(C).

Whether the Cooper-Jarrett, Inc., Retirement Plan for Non-Bargaining Employees violated the notification requirements of the Labor Department’s suspension of benefits plan regulation (29 CFR 2530.203-3), by suspending the retirement benefits for certain employees who continued working for their employer past their normal retirement age, which was prior to the effective date of the regulation, January 1, 1982), without making actuarial adjustments to their benefits or notifying the participants of these facts by the time these participants retired (whether before, on, or after the effective date of the regulation).

Whether the Concept Systems, Inc. Growth Share Plan (the Plan), which provides annual payments to participating employees during employment, after a compensation deferral for a maximum of 3 years, is an employee welfare benefit plan within the meaning of section 3(1) or an employee pension benefit plan within the meaning of section 3(2) of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA).

Whether the Keep Well Trust for Employer Aided Benefits is an employee welfare benefit plan within the meaning of section 3(1) of title I of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974.

Whether the Donnelly Mirrors, Inc. Participant Benefit Plan may benefit from the limited exception at 29 CFR §2520.104-44, to the reporting requirements of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), including the requirement under ERISA section 103(a)(3)(A) that an independent qualified public accountant must conduct an examination and certify any financial statements the Plan may have.

Whether transactions meant to separate two employee stock ownership plans originally created for employees of Time Incorporated (Time) by providing that each plan would have investment committees without members in common, would not provide services to each other, and would not own the same non-employer securities, were prohibited transactions under either Section 406(a) or 406(b)(1) of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) whether after the transactions, the plans would be parties in interest with respect to each other under ERISA section 3(14).

Whether an amendment to the Marine Midland Thrift Incentive Plan (the Plan) that would permit a participant to direct the Trustee of the Plan (Marine Midland, which serves without compensation ) to invest all or a portion of the participant's interest in the Plan in one or more of the three investment portfolios maintained by Mariner Institutional Funds, Inc. (Mariner), and several other changes in the management of the plan would be prohibited transactions under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), and if so, whether Prohibited Transactions Exemption 77-3 would apply, especially with respect to the acquisition or sale of shares of Mariners Funds by Marine Midland, as Trustee of the plan.