 
Belron US to Pay
More Than $210,000 to Retirement Savings
Plan, Nearly $84,000 to Pension Plan,
as Result of Complaint Filed by U.S. Department
of Labor
August 18, 2010
Belron US, also known as the Safelite Group, has agreed to pay
$210,799.36 into the company's retirement savings plan and $83,973.67
into the company's pension plan, as the result of a complaint filed
late last week by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) against the
Columbus, Ohio-based company. In the August
13 complaint, the DOL alleged that the firm appointed to handle
the company's retirement savings plan and pension plans, Brooks
Hamilton & Associates, was paid "for expenses that were
unnecessary to the operation of the plans."
The DOL says this occurred from January
1, 2002, through December 31, 2007, and
that the Belron US retirement plan administrative
committee "failed to adequately monitor
the services Brooks performed for the
plans and failed to determine whether
services were actually being provided
to the plans by Brooks for the fees the
plans were paying to Brooks."
In response, Belron US waived its "service
of process of the complaint and
admitted to the jurisdiction of this Court
over [the company] and the subject matter
of this action, but neither admit[ted]
nor den[ied] the remaining allegations
in the Secretary's complaint," according
to court documents, and has agreed to
make both payments to the plans.
In addition, the DOL had alleged that
the company's retirement committee had
sent notices to eligible participants
or beneficiaries last known addresses
between 2002 and 2007 to notify them of
their savings plan distributions, and
that 1,698 of these were returned as undeliverable,
and that no further procedures were implemented
to locate the participants, "caus[ing]
their distribution checks to be placed
in the Savings Plan's forfeiture account."
As a result of this charge, the company
has agreed to utilize new methods to locate
the participants, detailed in the consent
judgment.
We see it as a gray area within the law that has not been
interpreted by the Labor Department in our favor, says Tom
Feeney, president and CEO of Safelite Group, in a written statement.
However, rather than dispute this, we asked ourselves, 'What
impact does this have on our people? And in keeping with our
'People First' philosophy, we decided it was in the best interest
of our people to put monies back into the plan that will benefit
our associatesboth past and present.
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