The Daily Brief for Benefits Professionals
BenefitsWire
Retirement Plans
August 17, 2026
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11 items · ~4 min read
Top of the Brief
TDF Assets Gain 11% in First Half of 2026“On the 20th anniversary of the Pension Protection Act, a Sway Research report finds target-date funds have entered a new era.”
In this issue
Retirement Plans (5) · Litigation (3) · General Benefits (2) · Regulatory Action and Guidance (1)
Retirement Plans
5 items“Because the apparent diversification can be partly an artifact of how private assets are valued. Public stocks are marked every trading day. Private-equity holdings may be valued periodically using estimates, models and manager judgments. Market movements therefore don’t necessarily appear immediately in reported NAV. The result can be: Smoothed NAV → artificially low measured volatility → artificially low measured correlation → artificially attractive Sharpe ratio → apparent diversification benefit. The economic risk hasn’t necessarily disappeared. The ruler changed.” MORE >>
Source: The Commonsense 401(k) Project
“That may help explain why some of the industry’s most ambitious new private-market target-date products are being built as state-regulated Collective Investment Trusts rather than SEC mutual funds. And the history of stable value tells us why this matters. In 2004, the SEC wouldn’t swallow a synthetic stable-value mutual fund I know these products because I worked with synthetic stable value and 4 specific mutual funds. The old structure was relatively simple: SEC mutual fund Primarily 95%-100% mostly liquid fixed-income securities Around 1% to 5% bank/insurance-company wrap contracts The underlying bonds generally had market prices and could generally be sold.” MORE >>
Source: The Commonsense 401(k) Project
“On the 20th anniversary of the Pension Protection Act, a Sway Research report finds target-date funds have entered a new era.” MORE >>
Source: PLANSPONSOR
[General Benefits]
Multiemployer Pension Funding Study: Midyear 2026“Milliman’s midyear 2026 Multiemployer Pension Funding Study is an interim update to our annual study published in the first quarter of the year. This study updates the estimated funding status of U.S. multiemployer defined benefit (DB) pension plans as of June 30, 2026, showing the change in funding levels from December 31, 2025. Figure 1 shows that the aggregate funding surplus rose by about $27 billion during the six-month period ending June 30, 2026, to about $55 billion. The aggregate funded percentage increased from 103% to 106%.” MORE >>
Source: Milliman
[General Benefits]
Real Estate Private Debt: How a Research-Driven Approach Provides an Opportunity for Pensions“As pension funds navigate higher interest rates, market volatility, and growing pressure to meet long-term liabilities, real estate private debt has emerged as an increasingly attractive segment of alternative investments. Once viewed primarily as a complement to real estate equity, private debt is now being evaluated as a strategic source of income, downside protection, and diversification. For pension managers seeking stable returns in an uncertain environment, research-driven analysis is becoming essential to investment decision making.” MORE >>
Source: NCPERS
Litigation
3 items“Reviewing the summary judgment de novo, the Ninth Circuit vacated and remanded. The district court had granted summary judgment on the ground that “underperformance must be both substantial and consistent to support a claim of imprudence,” but it ruled without the benefit of the court’s subsequent decision in Anderson v. Intel Corp. Investment Policy Committee, 137 F.4th 1015 (9th Cir. 2025). In Anderson, the court clarified that prudence should be evaluated “prospectively, based on the methods the fiduciaries employed,” and that a breach of the duty of prudence can be shown by alleging facts that would directly demonstrate the fiduciaries employed unsound methods in making their investment ” MORE >>
Source: Roberts Disability Law
“On July 30, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit once again applied the judicially created “effective vindication doctrine”1 and held that an arbitration clause in a 401(k) plan document was unenforceable because it required the plaintiff-participant to waive substantive rights and remedies under ERISA. In Pover v. Capital Group Companies,2 a split panel3 of the Ninth Circuit held that the arbitration clause in the company’s 401(k) plan4 violated the effective vindication doctrine because, like the arbitration clause in Platt v. Sodexo, 148 F.4th 709 (9th Cir. 2025), it precluded the plaintiff “from bringing claims in a representative capacity on the Plan’s behalf” and “from” MORE >>
Source: mayerbrown.com
“A participant wanted to liquidate his 401(k) savings to take advantage of an anticipated market uptick, but it didn’t happen as quickly as he’d hoped. And court action that followed did not yield the results he hoped for either. Ahead of the decision in the case (Richard Kelly v. Altria Client Services LLC, case number 25-2080, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit), Judge Arthur Marvin Quattlebaum Jr., writing for a three-judge panel on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, explained that the plaintiff — Richard Kelly — essentially made three claims. In turn, each claim arose out of his effort to liquidate his account in a company benefit plan to take advantage of a stock marke” MORE >>
Source: American Retirement Association
General Benefits
2 items“Section 4960 of the Internal Revenue Code imposes an excise tax on certain executive compensation paid by applicable tax-exempt organizations. While the basic framework of Section 4960 has remained in place since 2017, Congress amended the statute in 2025 to expand the definition of a covered employee and provide for annual inflation adjustments to the remuneration threshold. The IRS has also issued Notice 2026-36 providing initial guidance on how it intends to interpret these changes. Below are answers to some common questions about Section 4960.” MORE >>
Source: Boutwell Fay
“The acquisition is the second deal in the outsourced fiduciary space for Mesirow in 2026 Mesirow, an independent, employee-owned financial services firm, has entered into an agreement to acquire the plan-level 3(38) business of flexPATH Strategies, LLC, a provider of outsourced fiduciary and custom portfolio construction solutions serving the retirement plan marketplace. flexPATH offers outsourced fiduciary services through 3(38) custom portfolio construction, and 3(21) and 3(38) investment lineup services. “By combining flexPATH’s established custom portfolio business with Mesirow’s institutional scale, technology infrastructure and fiduciary expertise, we are further enhancing our ability ” MORE >>
Source: 401(k) Specialist
Regulatory Action and Guidance
1 item“IRS Announcement 2026-15 gives employers using preapproved defined contribution (DC) plans until September 30, 2028, to adopt a newly approved document for the fourth remedial amendment cycle.” MORE >>
Source: Mercer
Also of Note
- PBGC Settles Employee’s Title VII Race Discrimination Suit — “The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. (PBGC) has settled a Title VII case filed by a Black employee.” (Hall Benefits Law)
- The Asset Class Hiding in Plain Sight — “For years, Emerging Markets (EM) local currency debt has been one of the most misunderstood segments of the fixed-income market.” (NCPERS)
- AI Exposure Is a Total Portfolio Question — “Most public pension plans that have reviewed their artificial intelligence (AI) exposure have done so within their public equity allocation.” (NCPERS)
- Designation of Databases to the Do Not Pay Working System — “Notice on public inspection, scheduled to publish 2026-08-18.” (Federal Register (public inspection))