The History of Custody
- 03:45
Learn the history of custody and how it started
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The history of custody has evolved over many years, so trying to pinpoint its very initiation may be a subject of some debate. However, many believe it all started back in 1961 when the US President, John F. Kennedy created the President's Committee on Corporate Pension plans. The movement for pension reformed gained some momentum when the Studebaker Corporation, an automobile manufacturer, closed its plant in 1963. Its pension plan was so poorly funded that Studebaker could not afford to provide all employees with their pensions. A company created a program in which 3,600 workers who had reached their retirement age of 60 received full pension benefits. 4,000 workers aged between 40 and 59, who had 10 years with Studebaker received a lump sum payments valued at roughly 15% of their actuarial value, of their pension benefits, and the remaining 2,900 workers received absolutely no pension at all. In 1963, Senator John L McClennan of Arkansas began an investigation through the Permanent Investigation Senate subcommittee into Labor leader George Barasch alleging misuse and diversion of $4 million of union benefit funds. After three years, the investigation had failed to find any wrongdoing, but had resulted in several proposed laws, including McClellan's, October the 12th, 1965 bill setting new fiduciary standards for plan trustees. Additionally due much in parts to his dismay over Barasch's sole control over union benefit plan funds. Senator Jacob K Javits of New York also introduced bills in 1965 and 1967, increasing regulation on welfare and pension funds to limit the control of plan trustees and administrators, and address the funding, vesting, reporting, and disclosure issues identified by the Presidential committee. His bills were opposed by business groups and labor unions, which sought to retain the flexibility they had enjoyed under pre ERISA law. Provisions from all three bills ultimately evolved into the guidelines enacted ERISA. ERISA being enacted in 1974 and signed inter law by President Gerald Ford on September the second, 1974 Labor Day. In subsequent years, ERISA has been amended repeatedly. As you can see, these changes evolved over many years. This whole process took over 30 years and was vigorously contested within the United States. Both business groups and labor unions had wished to retain complete autonomy as to how they looked after pension subscriptions. Obviously, companies had been co-mingling pension funds with the company funds, which were therefore being lost when plants or businesses went bust. Therefore, people's pension contributions were disappearing. And also, unions who had had sole control over some pension pots had also misappropriated large sums of funds, which meant that union members were also going without their pension funds. So with the ERISA Act coming into law in 1974, this created many opportunities for the industry and brought in far more regulation and control. It meant a sole person could not be solely responsible. It meant that companies could no longer commingle pension funds with the company funds. And it resulted in there being set processes with people having fiduciary responsibility for these funds, which if were deemed misappropriated by a third party, then the individuals involved could be prosecuted and sent to jail.