PBGC Issues Final Rule On Special Financial Assistance Program For Troubled Multiemployer Pension Plans

On July 8, 2022, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation ("PBGC") published its much anticipated final rule on the special financial assistance ("SFA") available to certain troubled multiemployer plans under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 ("ARPA").

As we previously described in our client alert, ARPA provided for cash payments from the PBGC to eligible plans that were supposed to be in the amount necessary for the plans to pay benefits and administrative expenses through the plan year ending in 2051. In July 2021, the PBGC released an interim final rule (the "IFR"), which provided various details on the SFA program, including how the SFA amount would be calculated for an eligible plan, as we previously explained in detail. But the devil is always in the details, and there were a number of questions raised by the IFR, including whether the assumptions and conditions established by the IFR would provide enough SFA for all eligible plans to remain solvent