John Paliga assists businesses and individuals with the many rules that govern employee benefit plans and arrangements. John has detailed knowledge of tax-qualified, defined benefit and defined contribution plans, (both multi-employer and single-employer) as well as non-qualified deferred compensation arrangements.
Employers have turned to John to successfully resolve issues raised by the Internal Revenue Service, Department of Labor and Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. John regularly works with employers and lenders to address the consequences of sharply escalating pension and benefit costs. John has served as the employee benefits lawyer to businesses involved in bankruptcy reorganization proceedings.
Both small and large companies have sought John’s assistance in designing, drafting and administering deferred compensation arrangements, including ones covered under Internal Revenue Code Section 409A. John also works with companies to identify and resolve employee benefit issues during mergers and acquisitions. John has experience drafting ERISA health care benefit plans, including medical reimbursement plans, and recently has been assisting clients with the “grandfather” rules under the 2010 health care law. John has significant experience in employee benefits litigation, including having prepared testimony and served as an expert witness.
Individuals and their domestic relations lawyers regularly seek John’s assistance in dividing retirement assets and in protecting benefit rights, in connection with divorce proceedings.
For almost six years, John led the employee benefits practice of a medium-sized law firm headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland. Before that, he served as Assistant Chief Counsel of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), where he focused on ERISA litigation, bankruptcy, ERISA coverage determinations and transactional work. John was the primary author of the government’s amicus brief in Hughes v. Jacobson, 525, U.S. 432 (1999). In addition, John was the lead attorney for the PBGC in several notable ERISA matters, such as Enron, Polaroid and Laidlaw.