Month: September 2008

Congress has passed the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 which amends section 712 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, section 2705 of the Public Health Service Act, and section 9812 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to require equity in the provision of mental health and substance-related disorder benefits under group health plans.

From the Wall Street Journal Health Blog:

The legislation exempts businesses with fewer than 50 employees. That’s one of several compromises that won the bill broad support from the business community and the Bush administration.

The House passed the language as a stand-alone bill (online here), while the Senate included it in another measure. So they’ll have to come to a joint agreement about what form the measure will take to be sent off to the White House for the president’s signature.

Read more about it here and here.

American (as opposed to Nigerian) email scam

From the Wall Street Journal:

The Corporate Counsel.net Blog has links to what he hopes are the most recent versions of drafts of the bailout legislation:

The latest version of the House “bailout” legislation includes provisions for a “say on pay” vote, limits on severance, clawbacks and shareholder access to the proxy for those companies involved in the bailout. See Section 9 on pages 11-13. The Senate version of a bailout bill contains the executive compensation provisions (see Section 17 on pages 30-31), but not the shareholder access one.

Bear in mind that both of these are just drafts and that they likely are just the Democratic versions of a bill. Media reports indicate that the bailout plans changes from hour to hour. In fact, I can’t even be sure I have linked to the latest drafts…

Here are the executive comp provisions taken from the draft Senate version (referred to above):

SEC. 17. EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION. The Secretary shall require that all entities seeking to sell assets through a program established under this Act meet appropriate standards for executive compensation and shareholder disclosure in order to be eligible, which standards shall include—

(1) limits on compensation to exclude incentives for executives to take risks that the Secretary deems to be inappropriate or excessive;

(2) a claw-back provision for incentive compensation paid to a senior executive based on earnings, gains, or other criteria that are later proven to be inaccurate; and

(3) such limitations on the entity paying severance compensation to its senior executives as are determined to be appropriate in the public interest in light of the assistance being given to the entity.

Over at the D & O Diary, Kevin M. LaCroix has been keeping track of all the ERISA lawsuits filed in connection with sub-prime lending (which you can access here).

He also writes about the litigation stemming from the most recent economic turmoil here:

The economic crisis that began as the subprime meltdown has clearly entered a dark new phase. And just as the prior stages of the crisis generated waves of related litigation, this new phase already has produced its own distinctive round of lawsuits. Like the underlying economic circumstances, the new litigation phase also seems darker and more threatening. . .

From the WSJ:

I have been working for some time at updating the links in the sidebar. Many were broken and out-of-date, but have now been updated.

(If you had emailed me in the last few months about adding a link to your blog, please do so again as I may have missed some.)

Last week’s economic developments created some of the roughest waters yet that plan fiduciaries and their advisors have had to navigate. For those looking for some general fiduciary guidelines, there has been a lot written here about the duties of ERISA plan fiduciaries during the last five years that this blog has been in existence. To find those posts, you can search the archives by entering the word “fiduciaries” in the search tool in the side-bar (or simply click here) and read a collection of posts on various fiduciary topics. However, if you only have time for a couple, I would recommend this post here (having to do with the mutual fund scandals) because the general principles discussed there continue to be useful information for what is happening in the market today. See also this post here which refers to the very important Unisys case (which you can access here) discussed last week in Cynthia Van Bogaert’s Q & A at Benefitslink.com.

Note: As always, please read the disclaimer in the sidebar. The information provided here should never be construed as legal advice. Any legal issues that you have should be reviewed by your legal counsel to apply the law to the particular facts of your situation.

In a press release here.

Is to install a treadmill at each desk. Read about it in this article–“I Put In 5 Miles at the Office. Excerpt:

Terri Krivosh, a partner at a Minneapolis law firm, logs three miles each workday on a treadmill without leaving her desk. She finds it easier to exercise while she types than to attend aerobics classes at the crack of dawn.

More here (Recommendation: watch the Good Morning America segment listed there):

Dr. James Levine of the Mayo Clinic came up with the idea of a “Treadmill Desk”. The idea is to slowly walk on a treadmill while working at a desk built around the treadmill…a Treadmill Desk.

Dr Levine’s research revealed that on the average his subjects burned 100 extra calories every hour while walking slowly — at 1 mile per hour — than while sitting in a chair.

Dr. Levine believes that if individuals were to replace 8 hours a day of sitting at their “normal” desk with a Treadmill Desk, and if other components of energy balance were constant, a weight loss of 57 pounds a year could occur.

More about it here.