Employee Benefits Security Administration April 21, 2006 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This document contains a final exemption from certain prohibited transaction restrictions of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA or the Act) and from certain taxes imposed by the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended (the Code). The exemption permits a ``qualified termination administrator'' (QTA) of an individual account plan that has been abandoned by its sponsoring employer to select itself or an affiliate to provide services to the plan in connection with the termination of the plan, to pay itself or an affiliate fees for those services, and to pay itself for services provided prior to the plan's deemed termination. The exemption also permits a qualified termination administrator of an abandoned plan to: (1) Designate itself or an affiliate as the provider of an individual retirement plan or other account for the distribution of a participant or beneficiary who fails to make an election regarding the disposition of such benefits; (2) select a proprietary investment product as the initial investment for such plan or account; (3) provide a federally insured bank or savings association account for small distributions; and (4) pay itself or its affiliate fees in connection therewith. This exemption is being granted in connection with the Department's final regulation at 29 CFR 2578.1, relating to the Termination of Abandoned Individual Account Plans, the Department's final regulation at 29 CFR 2550.404a-3, relating to the Safe Harbor for Distributions From Terminated Individual Account Plans, and the Department's final regulation at 29 CFR 2520.103-13, relating to the Terminal Report for Abandoned Individual Account Plans, which are being published simultaneously in this issue of the Federal Register. The exemption will affect individual account plans, the participants and beneficiaries of such plans, certain plan service providers, and the fiduciaries of such plans.