Employee Benefits Security Administration August 2005 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This document contains a proposed regulation that, upon adoption, would establish an electronic filing requirement for certain annual reports required to be filed with the Department of Labor by plan administrators and other entities. The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) and the Internal Revenue Code (the Code), and the regulations issued thereunder, impose certain annual reporting obligations on pension and welfare benefit plans, as well as on certain other entities. These annual reporting obligations generally are satisfied by filing the Form 5500 Series. Currently, the Department of Labor, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, and the Internal Revenue Service (the Agencies) use an automated document processing systemthe ERISA Filing Acceptance Systemto process the Form 5500 Series filings. As part of the Department's efforts to update and streamline the current processing system, the Department has determined that improvements and cost savings in the filing processes can best be achieved by adopting a wholly electronic filing processing system and eliminating the currently accepted paper filings. The Department believes that a wholly electronic system will result in, among other things, reduced filer errors and, therefore, reduced correspondence and potential for filer penalties; more timely data for public disclosure and enforcement, thereby enhancing the protections for participants and beneficiaries; and lower annual report processing costs, benefiting taxpayers generally. As part of the move to a wholly electronic filing system, the regulation contained in this document would, upon adoption, require Form 5500 filings made to satisfy the annual reporting obligations under Title I of ERISA to be made electronically. In order to ensure an orderly and cost-effective migration to an electronic filing system by both the Department and Form 5500 filers, under the proposal the requirement to file electronically would not apply until plan years beginning on or after January 1, 2007, with the first electronically filed forms due in 2008. Upon adoption, this regulation would affect employee pension and welfare benefit plans, plan sponsors, administrators, and service providers to plans subject to Title I of ERISA.

This document contains a notice of pendency before the Department of Labor (the Department) of a proposed amendment to PTE 84- 14. The exemption permits various parties that are related to employee benefit plans to engage in transactions involving plan assets if, among other conditions, the assets are managed by ``qualified professional asset managers'' (QPAMs), which are independent of the parties in interest and which meet specified financial standards. Additional exemptive relief is provided for employers to furnish limited amounts of goods and services to a managed fund in the ordinary course of business. Limited relief is also provided for leases of office or commercial space between managed funds and QPAMs or contributing employers. Finally, relief is provided for transactions involving places of public accommodation owned by a managed fund. Currently, PTE 84-14 requires the QPAM managing the assets of a plan in an investment fund to be independent of, and unrelated to, the employer sponsoring such plan. However, as described in the notice of final amendment to PTE 84-14 contained in this issue of the Federal Register, limited retroactive and transitional relief is provided for financial service entities to act as QPAMS for their own plans. If this proposed amendment is granted, a QPAM may prospectively manage an investment fund containing the assets of its own plan or the plan of an affiliate, to the extent the conditions of the proposal are met. The proposed amendment would affect participants and beneficiaries of employee benefit plans, the sponsoring employers of such plans, and other persons engaging in the described transactions.

This document contains notices of pendency before the Department of Labor (the Department) of proposed exemptions from certain of the prohibited transaction restrictions of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (the Act) and/or the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (the Code).