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Paul Heiring's practice focuses on employee benefits. He works out of the firm's Minneapolis office.
Paul's practice consists of representing employers, insurers, and financial service providers with respect to a wide range of employee benefit issues including plan design and drafting, resolution of internal plan administration problems, DOL and IRS audits, and ERISA litigation.
Plan Design and Drafting
Paul regularly counsels clients with respect to their typical employee benefits needs, including the design and drafting of traditional "qualified" retirement plans such as profit sharing plans, 401(k) plans, defined benefit plans, money purchase pension plans, etc. Paul also represents clients with respect to their "nonqualified" deferred compensation arrangements for executives, and their health, life, disability, and other benefit plans.
In addition to drafting technical plan documents, Paul regularly drafts summary plan descriptions and other employee communication materials that explain in layman's terms how the plans work.
Paul also has extensive expertise in the areas of prohibited transactions, fiduciary duties, and ERISA preemption of state laws.
Plan Administration Problems
The rules governing retirement plans are complex, and mistakes in plan administration are unavoidable. Many of these mistakes can result in disastrous tax consequences or substantial damages or penalties if not handled properly.
Paul regularly counsels clients regarding the IRS and DOL enforcement regimes, the various "reduced sanction" programs that are available to plans that voluntarily turn themselves in to the government (such as EPCRS, APRSC, VCR, and Walk-in CAP), the prohibited transaction exemption process, and the potential for litigation by plan participants, fiduciaries, and the DOL or IRS.
ERISA Litigation
Paul has extensive experience in the area of ERISA litigation and has a detailed understanding of the complicated procedural and substantive issues that can arise under ERISA. Representative matters that Paul has been involved in include:
Defending numerous employers in cases alleging that retirees had a "vested" right to post-retirement medical benefits and that those benefits could never be amended or eliminated
Defending employers and trustees of plans that hold employer stock from claims that the stock should have been sold before a precipitous decline in value
Defending an acquiring company in a large class action alleging that the acquisition had triggered an entitlement to hundreds of millions of dollars in benefits under a change-in-control severance plan for management employees, and that the acquiring company was breaching its fiduciary duty in processing claims for benefits
Defending a large insurance company in a multimillion dollar claim involving the transfer of assets held under a group annuity contract
Defending a large employer in a $3 million class action brought by employees of an acquired company alleging that, as part of the asset purchase agreement, they were promised larger pensions than they were actually receiving
Defending the corporate trustee of a large defined contribution plan in a class action seeking $72 million in damages for breach of fiduciary duty in connection with the acquisition and retention of several guaranteed investment contracts issued by Executive Life Insurance Company
Defending the trustees of various defined contribution plans who were being sued by the Department of Labor and plan participants for investing millions of dollars in what turned out to be a fraudulent "Ponzi" scheme
Defending an insurance company in a $4 million lawsuit brought by the trustees of a multiemployer pension plan alleging that the insurance company negligently performed the actuarial valuation for the plan, thereby creating the mistaken impression that the plan was over funded and causing the trustees to substantially increase benefits
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