Loren Rodgers
On February 12, the House Committee on Small Business will hold a hearing titled "Challenges and Benefits of Employee-Owned Small Businesses." The hearing, which will begin at 11:30 am, will be live-streamed. [Update on February 12: that link now goes to a committee page that includes a link to a video recording of the hearing.]
Loren Rodgers
The Center for American Progress, a progressive think tank, issued a report on January 20 titled Building Workers’ Wealth in Cities and States. The Center worked with the Hillary Clinton campaign on its economic policy.
NCEO
The NCEO exists to make employee ownership thrive, and our work—as measured by revenue—has more than doubled in the last decade. That growth means it is time for us to hire a controller. We've posted a job description that we're hoping to fill by early March.
Loren Rodgers
Deval Patrick, the former governor of Massachusetts and the latest entrant into the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, released his Opportunity Agenda on January 16. In it, he proposed several steps to promote employee ownership:
Corey Rosen
In Jander v. Retirement Plans Committee of IBM (2nd Cir. Dec. 10, 2018), the Second Circuit ruled that the Dudenhoeffer rule that "[t]o state a claim for breach of the duty of prudence on the basis of inside information, a plaintiff must plausibly allege an alternative action that the defendant could have taken that would have been consistent with the securities laws and that a prudent fiduciary in the same circumstances would not have viewed as more likely to harm the fund than to help it" raised conflicting standards. The court ruled that the plaintiffs in a case involving stock in IBM’s 401(k) plan had convincingly argued that early disclosure and correction of financial issues raised about accounting and other irregularities at its microelectronics division (which was ultimately sold) could have done more good than harm. The defendants appealed to the Supreme Court.
Loren Rodgers
Over 300 people have voted in the election for the NCEO's board of directors, and balloting will close this Friday, January 17, at 5 pm Pacific time.
Loren Rodgers
Members in good standing of the NCEO will receive an email on Tuesday, January 7, 2020, announcing the board elections. The email will include a link to a confidential electronic ballot. Directors will be selected through this election and appointment by existing board members for the upcoming board term, which runs from April 1, 2020, through March 31, 2023. Balloting will end on January 17.
Corey Rosen
In General Legal Advice Memo 2019-03, the IRS ruled that payments from a company to a former employee under an ESOP price protection plan are immediately taxable if made directly to the employee, but not if the employer makes a special "qualified non-elective contribution" to the plan that is allocated to the former employee’s account and then distributed as part of the ultimate account distribution. Once those funds are distributed, they would be taxed under normal distribution rules.
