- 71 -
In arguing that the Prime Plan is a unitary "plan" for 10 or
more employers within the scope of section 419A(f)(6),
petitioners rely on the following features: (1) The Prime Plan
had a common administrator, and the Trust had a single trustee,
neither of whom was accountable to or controlled by any one
participating employer; (2) participating employers irrevocably
delegated to Prime the responsibility for a variety of
administrative and other functions; (3) Prime exercised
unreviewable authority over the calculation of employer
contributions, as well as the determination of benefit
distributions and forfeitures to the Suspense Account; (4) Prime
was responsible for determining the amount of all disbursements
from the Suspense Account in accordance with an objective formula
set forth in the Trust Agreement; and (5) the Suspense Account
served a limited common interest of all participating employers.
We conclude, however, that the foregoing features are outweighed
by the following features that point to the result that we reach
today: (1) Prime was required to maintain separate accounts and
a separate accounting for each Employee Group; (2) the Trust
Agreement limited an employee's right to benefits under the Prime
Plan to the assets of his or her Employee Group; (3) an annual
valuation was performed for each Employee Group's account, and an
annual valuation has never been performed for the Trust as a
whole; (4) the summary plan description required by section 102
of ERISA was prepared separately for each Employee Group; (5) the
Page: Previous 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 NextLast modified: May 25, 2011