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This checklist is intended to be a useful informative tool to help the buyer company identify potential issues and liabilities associated with the target company’s benefit plans so that those issues and liabilities can be effectively managed, minimized or eliminated. However, each acquisition is unique and will require an individualized assessment. This checklist is a starting point and guide in conducting such an assessment. 

This is a sample audit document collection checklist that covers: Qualified Retirement Plans, Specific Plan Documents, Defined Benefit Plans, Union Plans, Group Health, Dental, and Vision Plans, Other Welfare Arrangements, etc.

Sample Retention Incentive Agreement Contract

Suzanne Hawkins has seen legal operations from every angle, as a practicing attorney, legal operations head, consultant, and law firm leader. An Trotter, Senior Director of Operations, Office of the General Counsel, Hearst, had the good fortune to speak with Suzanne about her career and get her insights on the emergence and evolution of legal operations. Click here to read the full article.

The deadline for EU Member States to amend their local laws in order to comply with EU Directive 2019/1152 on transparent and predictable working conditions was August 1, 2022. Here’s what employers with workers in Europe need to know. Check out this Seyfarth article to learn what the directive states.

The Ninth Circuit recently concluded that job applicants are not entitled to compensation for time devoted to pre-employment drug tests because an employment relationship has not yet been formed. The Ninth Circuit held that the “control test” does not apply to job applicants, and that, under California contract law, the applicants had no contract for employment until they passed the pre-hire drug tests. Johnson v. WinCo Foods.

As various restrictions put in place during the global coronavirus pandemic have lifted across the world, many businesses have embraced hybrid working. However, as we look to the future, are these working arrangements of the so-called “new normal” really here to stay?

As previously reported, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization held that the
authority to regulate abortion is returned to the states, permitting states to regulate
abortion within their borders. Thus, employers and administrators of plans that cover
abortion services will need to be cognizant of state restrictions on availability of abortions
and related services. Texas has been prominent in
legislating restrictions on performance of and access to abortions.

Covid-19 has profoundly rewritten the rules and beliefs of what the workspace should be before the pandemic hit the entire nation. "Pandemic Life" has forever changed the way we think, how we travel, personal interactions and of course, how we work. The impact Covid has had on today's workforce has brought many changes in the way employers and employees interact with one another. Something that started as a temporary work-from-home scenario quickly changed into a two-year mandatory remote work situation.

Savings is not a strategy. Imagine a CEO opening an earnings call by celebrating the money the company “saved” on deal counsel and due diligence by not moving forward with an otherwise strategically vital acquisition. The stock would crater because leadership would rightly be judged as majoring in the minors.

As a line item, legal spend is a minor consideration. Rather, legal spend is better characterized as a relatively small investment that enables the business to execute on what matters.

Legal spend should be dictated by business needs. Those business needs are only escalating with the explosion in legal complexity. The increasingly law-thick environment in which businesses operate is having a profound impact on corporate top lines, bottom lines, valuations, and strategic opportunities. Trying to save money on legal is myopic—and excruciatingly common.