Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation June 2011 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) is requesting that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) approve, under the Paperwork Reduction Act, a collection of information on the disclosure of termination information under its regulations for distress terminations, 29 CFR part 4041, subpart C, and for PBGC-initiated terminations under 29 CFR part 4042 (OMB control number 1212-0065; expires October 31, 2011). This notice informs the public of PBGC's request and solicits public comment on the collection of information that must be provided by plan administrators and plan sponsors to affected parties upon request.

This final rule implements section 404 of the Pension Protection Act of 2006. Section 404 amended Title IV of ERISA to provide that when an underfunded, PBGC-covered, single-employer pension plan terminates while its contributing sponsor is in bankruptcy, sections 4022 and 4044(a)(3) of ERISA are applied by treating the date the sponsor's bankruptcy petition was filed as the termination date of the plan. Section 4022 determines which benefits are guaranteed by PBGC, and section 4044(a)(3) determines which benefits are entitled to priority in ``priority category 3'' in the statutory hierarchy for allocating the assets of a terminated plan. Thus, under the 2006 amendments, when a plan terminates while the sponsor is in bankruptcy, the amount of benefits guaranteed by PBGC and the amount of benefits in priority category 3 are fixed at the date of the bankruptcy filing rather than at the plan termination date. In most cases, this reduces the amount of guaranteed benefits and the amount of benefits in priority category 3.