Goodbye Tension, Hello Pension….Retirement Income Not!

When DHL acquired Airborne Express, it began to merge the two companies’ retirement plans. Before the merger, Airborne employees were able to transfer the entire balance of a Profit Sharing Plan to the Retirement Income Plan upon retirement, and would be entitled to at least $5,000 monthly from the Retirement Income Plan, while leaving nothing remaining in the Profit Sharing Plan account. But DHL eliminated the right of participants to transfer their account balances from the Profit Sharing Plan to the Retirement Income Plan. Plaintiffs here are former employees of Airborne who contend the “anti-cutback” rule of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 [ERISA] prohibits the changes made by DHL. A federal trial judge dismissed the complaint. After inviting briefs from the U.S. Dept. of Labor and the Dept. of the Treasury, the Ninth Circuit agreed with the trial court that plaintiffs failed to state a cause of action, and affirmed. (Andersen v. DHL Retirement Pension Plan (Ninth Cir.; September 15, 2014) 766 F.3d 1205.)