SCOTUS to Tackle Employer Pension Exit Bill Calculations (1)

The US Supreme Court will hear a case asking how much flexibility pension actuaries have when calculating the money owed by companies withdrawing from a multiemployer plan, the justices announced Monday.

The case asks the court to resolve a circuit split over the interest rate assumptions used to calculate the pension fund withdrawal liability. Small changes in these assumptions—some of which attempt to forecast future investment returns—can cause large variations in an employer’s liability, and federal circuit courts disagree about when these assumptions must be in place before they can be used to tally a given company’s bill.

The justices ...