DOL Enforcement Strategy Targets Problems in ESOP Valuations, Speaker Says

Unrealistic growth projections and other “chronic problems” in employee stock ownership plan valuations have caused the Department of Labor to adopt an enforcement strategy that places significant focus on ESOPs, a DOL official said during a Feb. 6 panel presentation.

Timothy D. Hauser, the deputy assistant secretary for program operations for the DOL’s Employee Benefits Security Administration, said ESOP valuations have been “an area of chronic problems,” and that EBSA has brought many cases in the last year that focus on “problematic appraisals” and fiduciaries’ reliance upon those appraisals.

Hauser spoke with other Employee Retirement Income Security Act attorneys at ...