July 7, 2011

Newly introduced Senate Bill S. 1232

A bill to modify the definition of fiduciary under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 to exclude appraisers of Employee Stock Ownership Plans (“ESOP”).

Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) introduced S. 1232, a bill to modify the definition of fiduciary under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 to exclude appraisers of employee stock ownership plans. The bill is co-sponsored by Senators Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Susan Collins (R-ME), Scott Brown (R-MA), and Mary Landrieu (D-LA).

Desired Result: Stop Department of Labor’s (DOL) regulatory attack on ESOPs.

Their amendment would stop the DOL proposed regulation mandating all private company ESOP appraisers be ERISA fiduciaries. Briefly, if DOL has its way, all private ESOP companies would pay significantly higher fees for appraisals, there would be extreme confusion over whether the appraiser or the trustee

[s] and other current fiduciaries make the decisions about acquisition of shares, and most troubling, would leave private ESOP companies sitting ducks anytime aggressive trial lawyers could find anyone upset over a share value determination. [See www.esopassocition.org, and the 12 blog posts, about the harm the DOL proposal will do to the ESOP community if finalized.]

Proposed House Bill H.R. 1244

The “Promotion and Expansion of Private Employee Ownership Act of 2011.”

Desired Result: Pro-ESOP provisions, expanding incentives to create employee owned companies.

The ESOP Association endorses this proposal, and expresses appreciation to Congressmen David G. Reichert (R-WA), Ron Kind (D-WI), Charles W. Boustany, Jr. (R-LA), Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Erik Paulsen (R-MN), and Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) for introducing legislation to expand broadened employee ownership thorugh ESOPs.