Mercer Select US - Cash balance plan wins in Eighth Circuit on opening-balance and age-bias claims

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Cash balance plan wins in Eighth Circuit on opening-balance and age-bias claims

No ERISA violation occurred when a pension plan used an 8 percent interest rate to establish opening balances in connection with a 1998 cash balance conversion, the US Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled. Participants claimed the rate was too high, but the appeals court said the plan was free at that time -- before passage of the Pension Protection Act -- to set opening balances as it wished, as long as already-accrued benefits did not decrease. The court also dismissed participants' age-bias claims, consistent with rulings by five other appeals courts. (Select News, 13 Nov 2009)

Full text of Eighth Circuit’s decision in Sunder v. US Bancorp Pension Plan (9 Nov 2009)

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