More on the IBM Cash Balance Plan Case

Today’s Wall Street Journal reports: “IBM Workers Seek Payments In Cash-Balance Pension Suit.” According to the article, the employees are asking that the company recalculate participants’ benefits and make additional payments for accrued benefit increases going back to 1995. Back in July, Judge Murphy ruled in favor of employees in Cooper et al. v. IBM et al., holding that the IBM cash balance plan violated ERISA, but “left unresolved the question of what the workers should receive in damages, and directed parties in the case to propose what relief the court should order to address the violations.” The article notes that if “the court approves the payment request, retired workers would get remedial payments if earlier benefits amounted to less than they would have been under the new formula, and some current employees would see benefits bumped up, according to Doug Sprong, a benefits lawyer at Korein Tillery in Belleville, Ill., who represented the plaintiffs.” IBM has yet to file its response to the proposed damages.