Cite as: 508 U. S. 602 (1993)
Opinion of the Court
arial assumptions and methods to be used in these different contexts tends to check the actuary's discretion in each of them.
"Using different assumptions [for different purposes] could very well be attacked as presumptively unreasonable both in arbitration and on judicial review.
"[This] view that the trustees are required to act in a reasonably consistent manner greatly limits their discretion, because the use of assumptions overly favorable to the fund in one context will tend to have offsetting unfavorable consequences in other contexts. For example, the use of assumptions (such as low interest rates) that would tend to increase the fund's unfunded vested liability for withdrawal liability purposes would also make it more difficult for the plan to meet the minimum funding requirements of § 1082." United Retail & Wholesale Employees Teamsters Union Local No. 115 Pension Plan v. Yahn & McDonnell, Inc., 787 F. 2d, at 146-147 (Seitz, J., dissenting in part).
This point is not significantly blunted by the fact that the assumptions used by the Plan in its other calculations may be "supplemented by several actuarial assumptions unique to withdrawal liability." Brief for Respondent 26. Concrete Pipe has not shown that any method or assumption unique to the calculation of withdrawal liability is so manipulable as to create a significant opportunity for bias to operate, and arguably the most important assumption (in fact, the only actuarial assumption or method that Concrete Pipe attacks in terms, see Reply Brief for Petitioner 18-20) is the critical interest rate assumption that must be used for other purposes as well.19
19 It may be that the trustees could, in theory, replace the actuary's assumptions with their own, but that would involve a different case from this, and while we are aware of at least one case in which a plan sponsor exercised decisive influence over an actuary whose initial assumptions it
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