A series of 20 cases brought against the Nationwide Insurance companies alleging that ERISA overrode noncompetition provisions in an incentive compensation arrangement for career insurance agents.  We acted as ERISA counsel, briefing the issues and overseeing the argument, in cases in seven U.S. district courts, two U.S. courts of appeals, and the Supreme Court, which rendered a unanimous decision for our client in Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. et al v. Darden, 112 S. Ct. 1344 (1992).

In Foltz v. U.S. News & World Report, Inc., we successfully represented an appraiser in a complex multi-party profit-sharing plan dispute.  The case primarily related to the valuation of employer stock held by the plan, and is one of the few reported ERISA decisions dealing with stock valuation.

In Daily v. National Hockey League, plaintiffs seeking to represent a class of current and former participants in the NHL pension plan disputed the use of surplus plan funds.  We successfully defended the life insurance company whose group annuity contract was a funding vehicle for the plan.

In a matter we did not litigate, we implemented the largest and probably most complex settlement ever entered in an ERISA case – the $415,000,000 settlement of ERISA § 510 claims in McClendon v. Continental Can.

We recently successfully defended claims that a large employer's profit sharing plan applied an improper value in effecting substantial intra-plan fund transfers, as well as the trustees of a large national pension fund in a purported class action by a group of participants who challenged certain aspects of the plan's design.

In a tax court decision recently affirmed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, we successfully reversed an IRS determination that certain modifications to post-employment COLAs are prohibited benefit reductions.