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The Department of Labor announced that it expected to re-propose its definition of a plan fiduciary in August. The new definition, expected to affect ESOP appraisers, is now called the "conflict-of-interest" rule.

On March 8, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) proposed new rules for prohibited transaction exemption (PTE) filings, rules that have raised concerns in the ESOP community. These filings are relatively rare, with about 20 per year. While ESOPs are statutorily exempt from having to make these filings, some ESOP professionals are concerned the DOL might subsequently extend the concepts in the proposal to ESOPs.

A proposed federal acquisition regulation (FAR Case 92-24) that would have limited the ability of government contractors to fund ESOPs has been withdrawn.

The Financial Accounting Foundation, the parent organization of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), plans to encourage modification of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) for private companies.

The Main Street Employee Ownership Act, signed into law on August 13, was drafted to encourage loans to facilitate ESOP and worker cooperative transactions.

According to a recent survey by Pensions & Investments, "among the biggest DC [defined contribution] plans, company stock represented a 15

The scenario for public company ESOPs is somewhat murkier. All the principal legislative proposals would exempt stand-alone ESOPs from any diversification requirements. However, the Kennedy bill would add the additional fiduciary and employee representation issues outlined above.

In a new study by Olubunmi Faleye, Vikas Mehrotra, and Randall Morck of 225 public companies with broad employee ownership of 5% or more of a company's stock, the authors found that productivity, Tobin's Q (a ratio of the market value of a firm's securities to the replacement costs of its tangibl

The U.S. Department of Labor's Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) will hold a public hearing on March 1, 2011 and if necessary, March 2, 2011, in Washington, D.C.

Publix Supermarkets continues to be the largest majority employee-owned company in the U.S. and, almost certainly, the world. It employs over 120,000 employees in over 800 stores in five Southern states.