Pensions & Benefits: Critical Issues and What's Often Overlooked

Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Pan Pacific Hotel, 999 Canada Place, Vancouver

Who should attend: Pension lawyers, family law lawyers, employment and labour law lawyers, corporate counsel, and pension administrators.

Learning level: Intermediate/Advanced

Pension information for all disciplines!
This course is a selection of high level topics dealing with employment benefit and pension issues. These issues will intersect multiple areas of practice and this course will be essential to you if you practice family law, if you advise on employment, labour or wrongful dismissal law, if you provide advice to plan and benefit administrators, if you have a business law practice and are involved with mergers or acquisitions, or if you are counsel for a company that provides benefits to its employees. The legal landscape has changed and is changing further due to economic pressures and demographics. Don't be left behind!

Law Society of BC CPD Hours: 6.5 hours (a minimum of 1 hour will involve aspects of professional responsibility and ethics, client care and relations, and/or practice management)

Course Chairs 
Thomas G. Anderson, QC — Anderson Pension Law Consulting, North Vancouver
Scott Sweatman — Spectrum HR Law LLP, Vancouver

Planning Committee 
Thomas G. Anderson, QC — Anderson Pension Law Consulting, North Vancouver
Colin Galinski — Spectrum HR Law LLP, Vancouver
Scott Sweatman — Spectrum HR Law LLP, Vancouver

Registration includes course materials. Note: You will continue to receive a print copy of the materials at the course. In addition, you will receive an email with a link to the online version of the materials approximately one day before the course.

CLEBC Program Lawyer
Wendy McLean
wmclean@cle.bc.ca

Can't make the course? 
Order the course materials
Price for papers published for this course, determined on publication, ranges from $90 to $195 plus shipping and HST.

Course Chairs 
Thomas G. Anderson, QC — Anderson Pension Law Consulting, North Vancouver
Scott Sweatman — Spectrum HR Law LLP, Vancouver

Planning Committee 
Thomas G. Anderson, QC — Anderson Pension Law Consulting, North Vancouver
Colin Galinski — Spectrum HR Law LLP, Vancouver
Scott Sweatman — Spectrum HR Law LLP, Vancouver

Faculty 
Thomas G. Anderson, QC — Anderson Pension Law Consulting, North Vancouver
Diane M. Bell — Clark Wilson LLP, Vancouver
Kenneth E. Burns — Lawson Lundell LLP, Vancouver
Lisa C. Chamzuk — Lawson Lundell LLP, Vancouver
Stephen Cheng — Managing Director & Senior Consulting Actuary, Westcoast Actuaries Inc., Vancouver
Michael Demner — Demner Consulting Services Ltd., Vancouver
Colin Galinski — Spectrum HR Law LLP, Vancouver
Ian M. Karp — Karp Actuarial Services Ltd., Vancouver
Kim Kenyon — BC Pension Corporation, Victoria
Scott Sweatman — Spectrum HR Law LLP, Vancouver
Michael Wolpert — Spectrum HR Law LLP, Calgary

Welcome and Introduction

Thomas G. Anderson, QC — Anderson Pension Law Consulting, North Vancouver
Scott Sweatman — Spectrum HR Law LLP, Vancouver

Employment Benefits Generally

• summary of the range of employment benefits
• how do these issues affect other legal disciplines?
• different perspectives on common legal problems

Kenneth E. Burns — Lawson Lundell LLP, Vancouver

When an Employer Restructures Benefits

• what are vested interests and what are not?
• what scope is there for an employer to cut back or review benefit packages and plans
• plan conversions, wind-ups, and other restrictions

Lisa C. Chamzuk — Lawson Lundell LLP, Vancouver

Networking Break

Mergers & Acquisitions: What You Need to Know About Benefits When Acquiring a Business

• do you know what you are purchasing?
• what is the extent of the liabilities represented by employment benefits?

Scott Sweatman — Spectrum HR Law LLP, Vancouver

Correcting Past Mistakes?

• what are your obligations upon discovering that past practices have not been consistent with legal obligations?
• are they different for an employer, plan sponsor, administrator, or fund custodian?

Michael Wolpert — Spectrum HR Law LLP, Calgary

Lunch (on your own)

Employment Benefits and Marriage Breakdown

• finding out what benefits are available
• determining how the benefits work
• considering the implications of such benefits in the division of family assets and/or the payment of support obligations

Diane M. Bell — Clark Wilson LLP, Vancouver
Colin Galinski — Spectrum HR Law LLP, Vancouver

Family Relations Act, Pensions, and an Aging Population

• survivor benefit issues
• is it possible to preserve these benefits on marriage breakdown?
• securing lifetime income for a former spouse
• the inter-relationship of pension division and support obligations

Thomas G. Anderson, QC — Anderson Pension Law Consulting, North Vancouver

Networking Break

An Administrator's Perspective

• what information can the plan provide?
• steps to avoid roadblocks and speed up obtaining information from a plan
• how to interpret a Person Profile/Member Benefit Statement 
• obtaining information in advance on whether the plan can administer the arrangement you are negotiating
• what to do when the plan writes to you for further directions

Kim Kenyon — BC Pension Corporation, Victoria

Actuaries Panel

• when do you need an actuary?
• what actuaries wish the family lawyer understood about requesting and using actuarial reports

Stephen Cheng — Managing Director & Senior Consulting Actuary, Westcoast Actuaries Inc., Vancouver
Michael Demner — Demner Consulting Services Ltd., Vancouver
Ian M. Karp — Karp Actuarial Services Ltd., Vancouver

Disability Benefits and the Family Relations Act

• review of the trends and changes that  the courts are undertaking with respect to disability benefits—not just reapportionment

Thomas G. Anderson, QC — Anderson Pension Law Consulting, North Vancouver