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Sunday Schedule
Program
Annual
Meeting
Home
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Sunday, January 5, 2003
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1:30-3:15 p.m.
Section on Employee Benefits
- Jay Conison, Valparaiso University, Chair
- Norman P. Stein, The University of Alabama, Program Chair
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Virginia Suite B
Marriott Wardman Park Hotel
Lobby Level
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Employee Stock Ownership After Enron
Moderator:
Norman P. Stein, The University of Alabama
Speakers: - Louis H. Diamond, Esquire, Silverstein & Mullins, Washington, D.C.
- Patricia E. Dilley, University of Florida
- Jeffrey N. Gordon, Columbia University
- Colleen E. Medill, University of Tennessee
- Damon Silvers, Associate General Counsel, AFL-CIO , Washington, D.C.
- Susan J. Stabile, St. John's University
Many companies, both public and private, sponsor deferred compensation plans that permit or require employees to invest all or some of their compensation in their company's stock. These practices have been questioned by some, even before Enron's failure, as an unwise departure from the teachings of modern portfolio theory. In the late 1990s, when several mid-sized companies such as Color Tiles and Carter/Hawley went broke and employees lost most of the value of their 401(k) plans, critics advocated, albeit unsuccessfully, for strict limits to be put on the amount of employee stock that an employee could own in a defined contribution plan. The recent failures of Enron and other giant companies gave thunderous echo to the Color Tiles and Carter/Hawley stories.
This panel will consider the future of employee stock ownership (in defined contribution plans) and examine some of the issues raised by employee stock ownership. The program will begin with a look at the significant tax benefits that accrue to an employer that sponsors a plan in which employees can own large amounts of employer stock. The program will then consider the merits of the view that employee stock ownership increases firm productivity; the arguments for and against placing limits on employee stock ownership, and the political prospects for creating such limits; the potential conflicts that employee stock ownership sometimes creates between ERISA's fiduciary standards and the broad disclosure standards of federal and state securities law; and the view of organized labor and management about the place of employee stock ownership in the work place.
Business Meeting at Program Conclusion
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