Howard Pianko > Seyfarth Shaw LLP > New York, United States > Lawyer Profile
Seyfarth Shaw LLP Offices
620 8TH AVENUE
32ND FLOOR
NEW YORK, NY 10018-1405
NEW YORK
United States
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Howard Pianko
Work Department
Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation
Position
Partner
Career
Howard Pianko’s notable skills include all aspects of domestic and cross-border employee benefits and executive compensation. He is recognized as an expert in ERISA plan governance, domestically and internationally, and pension investments; including fiduciary governance reviews, and alternative investment by pension plans. Howard is seen as an experienced lawyer qualified to act as independent counsel in significant ERISA fiduciary matters requiring special counsel. For more than 30 years he has co-chaired leading CLE seminars on ERISA fiduciary and pension investment law. Howard also has considerable experience in the employee benefit aspects of domestic and cross-border acquisitions, divestments, spin-offs and joint ventures.
Projects that Howard has helped address include:
- A unique retiree health benefit solution. The law firms working on an M&A transaction decided to set up a trust that the seller would fund at closing to satisfy its retiree health obligation. This trust was established upon closing of the deal (i.e., before there was an actual committee for the trust). Howard acted as counsel for the trust in the negotiation of the terms of the trust’s formation; and then for its implementation.
- A multibillion-dollar de-risking window. Howard was retained as counsel representing the pension plan involved (not the employer/sponsor) in the offering of a lump sum option to former employees participating in the pension plan. After this “window” was ended, he was retained as ongoing counsel solely with respect to matters (e.g., claim appeals) involving the administration of this very large plan.
- Record-keeper/fund line-up transition. After an RFP, a plan committee decided to change the record-keeper and investment line-up for its multibillion-dollar defined contribution plan. Howard was retained as counsel to achieve this transition and to effect the mapping to a new line-up within the established timeline.
Memberships
- International Pension & Employee Benefits Lawyers Association (1987-present)
- Practising Law Institute, Employee Benefits Specialty Area advisory council
- Thomson Reuters Practical Law advisory council
Top Tier Firm Rankings
- Real estate > Construction (including construction litigation)
- Labor and employment > Immigration
- Labor and employment > Labor and employment disputes (including collective actions)
- Labor and employment > Labor-management relations
- Labor and employment > Immigration
- Labor and employment > Immigration
- Labor and employment > Immigration
- Labor and employment > Workplace and employment counseling
Firm Rankings
- Dispute resolution > E-discovery
- Labor and employment > Employee benefits, executive compensation and retirement plans: design
- Labor and employment > ERISA litigation
- Government > Government contracts
- M&A/corporate and commercial > M&A: middle-market (sub-$500m)
- Tax > Not-for-profit (Fortune 1000 private foundations, national trade associations, and charities)
- Intellectual property > Trade secrets (litigation and non-contentious matters)
- Media, technology and telecoms > Cyber law (including data privacy and data protection)
- Real estate > Real estate
- Industry focus > Cannabis
- Dispute resolution > Product liability, mass tort and class action - defense: consumer products (including tobacco)
- Real estate > Real estate finance
- Dispute resolution > Securities litigation: defense
- Investment fund formation and management > Private equity funds (including venture capital)
- Tax > US taxes: non-contentious