Increased Penalties for Coercive Interference with Pension Rights
The Pension Protection Act of 2006 increases penalties for coercive interference with pension rights.
The private pension law makes it unlawful for anyone to use fraud, force, violence or threat of violence to restrain, coerce, or intimidate a retirement plan participant or beneficiary for the purpose of interfering with or preventing the exercise of any right under the law or the plan.Until now, the penalty for willfully violating this section of the law, Section 511 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, was a $10,000 fine or imprisonment for up to one year.
Under the new law, anyone coercively interfering with another's pension rights can be fined up to $100,000 and imprisoned for as many as 10 years.
This provision took effect on August 17, 2006, the date the law was enacted.
Read Section 623 of the Pension Protection Act of 2006 (Public Law 109-280)
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