Commissioning A Governance Audit

Originally published in Blakes Bulletin on Pension & Employee Benefits, February 2007

Governance audits of pension plans can help minimize potential liability for the plan sponsor and administrator, as well as officers and directors.

Pension plan governance is a subset of overall corporate governance. For corporations that sponsor pension plans for employees, implementing a good pension governance structure is essential to ensuring its plans are administered in accordance with their terms and applicable law. Audits check whether the operation of a plan complies with plan documents, applicable law and best practices guidelines. As an increasing number of plan sponsors and administrators become aware of governance audits, many are asking questions about what a governance audit is and the basics of why, how and when audits should be performed. This article focuses on single employer pension plans registered under Ontario