Geological Observatory of Coldigioco
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Promoting Financial Empowerment via 401(k) Plan Domestic Abuse Victim Distributions
No full textDomestic violence is sadly and shockingly all too prevalent in the United States. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, more than one in four women and one in seven men in this country are subject to domestic abuse “affecting an estimated 10 million people every year.”
Finances and financial abuse play a significant role in 99% of domestic abuse cases. “[L]acking financial knowledge or resources is the number one indicator of whether a domestic violence victim will stay, leave, or return to an abusive relationship.”When abusers have control over financial assets, victims are monetarily paralyzed and have little ability to escape their situation. Additionally, abusers can engage in financial sabotage maliciously and intentionally ruining the victim’s credit scores, taking their earnings, or “harassing them at their workplace until they lose their job and their own source of income.”
Some circumstances can make escaping one’s abuser even more financially challenging. When children are involved, escaping is even more critical but financially difficult for a victim to escape and stay free. Further, during high inflationary or economically volatile periods when expenses are higher and investment balances uncertain, it can be more financially challenging to break and stay free from one’s abuser. Such immediate financial constraints may influence the victim’s choice to stay in abusive situations, since victims may additionally consider the long-term economic impact that leaving these relationships may have.
Giving domestic abuse victims financial empowerment so that they can both escape their abuser and be positioned to stay free is crucial First, this essay focuses on the statutory requirements of the newly permissible 401(k) domestic abuse victim distributions. It then proffers how employers can help employees who are in abusive situations through employee benefits like their 401(k) plans. Specifically, it addresses how employers can shift to a more compassionate position by supporting and assisting their victim employees through their retirement plans
Diocese of Rockville Centre Pioneers a Global Resolution for Itself, Its 136 Parishes, and its Settling Insurers Post-\u3ci\u3ePurdue\u3c/i\u3e
No full textIn order to resolve hundreds of Child Victims Act lawsuits alleging sexual abuse, the Diocese of Rockville Centre commenced chapter 11 to seek protection for itself, its parishes, and schools, as well as providing equitable compensation for the hundreds of claimants, while maximizing their substantial insurance assets. In 2024, the Supreme Court decisions in Purdue and Truck materially complicated such resolutions, presenting substantial hurdles to the dual objectives of getting parishes releases and maximizing insurance assets.
The Diocese, through innovation, met both challenges: It protected itself, its parishes, schools, and ministry and delivered total peace to their shared insurers for a cash settlement premised upon the surrender and release of their insurance protection. The key features were: (i) relying on a hybrid bankruptcy process that combined a traditional chapter 11 bankruptcy for the Diocese with rapid prepackaged bankruptcies for its parishes, thereby obtaining for all the protection of a discharge in bankruptcy and comfort sufficient to surrender their insurance protection; (ii) gaining for its settling insurers the protection of a channeling injunction against all derivative claims and a mechanic for obtaining consensual releases of direct claims from all affected abuse claimants; and (iii) relying upon a thorough understanding of derivative claims to protect its schools and others.
Through the hybrid process, the Diocese alone sustained the burdens of chapter 11 bankruptcy, including negotiating with claimants and insurers and creating a joint disclosure statement and plan, which anticipated parishes commencing chapter 11 cases only if there was overwhelming support for the joint plan. Once the Diocese obtained a clear mandate favoring the joint plan, all parishes filed rapid prepackaged bankruptcies, became co-proponents of the joint plan and exited bankruptcy within 36 hours of filing their cases with the protection of a discharge in bankruptcy against all historical abuse claims, whenever asserted