Legal

This is a good time to help clients review exposures to credit risks in municipal bonds. An ongoing debate in the muni market centers on how state and local governments report unfunded pension liabilities.

California's public employee pension plans face long-term shortfalls as high as $500 billion as costs skyrocket each day, a Stanford University-based economic think tank said Tuesday in a report that critics assailed as relying on faulty data to support the group's political agenda.

Calling himself the 401(k) lab rat, Richard Schmitt has been day trading within his 401(k) plan for the past three years.

The 214,000 West Virginians covered by the Public Employees Insurance Agency can expect some new or higher health care copayments while retired enrollees will see a limit to the subsidy that helps them pay premiums, which will rise 9 percent, under provisions approved Tuesday by the agency's finance board.

Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. has settled allegations by the U.S. Department of Labor that the company and one of its employees violated the Employee Retirement Income Security Act by failing to prevent the fiduciaries of two Alabama pension plans from engaging in prohibited transactions.

The U.S. Department of Labors newly revised interim policy on electronic disclosure clarifies that plan administrators and their service providers will not be out of compliance with the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) if they use continuous access websites to impart required disclosure information.