Employee Stock Ownership Program

RTM

Our privately held company provides an ESOP retirement fund. Since the employees own 1/3 of the company, are we required to maintain as confidential any prior employee's ESOP fund and vested balance? This represents a significant liability to the overall company financial statement and needs to be discussed with the ESOP executive committee. How protected/confidential is such information?

Pork

RTM: If I'm not mistaken your ESOP "executive committee" is or should be bonded for confidential information which might place the plan in a libel situation. Each member is or should be a trusted member of the plan with personal fiduciary accountabilities and entitled to know all facets of the plan's business. Should anyone of these members charged with special trust breaks that trust, then they individually can be held liabel.

Check this out with your retained attorney, but I remember the days when, I was awakened with the attachment of the word "fiduciary" to my position on a governing board. I suddenly realized the real meaning of confidential and security of "fiduciarial information".

If any member is not aware of their responsibility then I wouold not address plan business information with that person. If he or she is not willing to sign a memo for record of my understanding, then he or she is not getting to participate on this executive committee!

Without all of the plan information, how can you or the company expect the committee member to perform his/her duties with out a full deck!

PORK