Jewell Lim Esposito and Robert S. Ellerbrock III bring unrivaled fiduciary experience to the role of Corporate Trustee, Non-Depository Custodian, or Plan Sponsor that Trust Integritas will serve.
Continually recruited by “Big Law,” Jewell has practiced in the specific areas of Employee Benefits and Tax since 1993. She sub-specializes in Title I (Department of Labor (“DOL”) fiduciary issues) and Title II (tax qualification issues) under ERISA, the federal law that governs retirement plans. She is very familiar with negotiating around the prohibited transaction rules under Section 4975 of the Internal Revenue Code (“Code”) and parallel provisions under ERISA.
In her 30+ years of legal practice, Jewell has counseled and represented many disqualified persons/fiduciaries: public and private company retirement plan compensation committees, those companies’ boards of directors, investment advisors, custodians, and trustees. She has handled litigation involving, administration with, and prohibited transaction exemption applications to the DOL and correction programs with Service. Jewell was invited by and has addressed the DOL’s Advisory Council on Employee Welfare and Pension Benefit Plans (the ERISA Advisory Council) on Form 5500 reporting, financial statements, and problems qualified retirement plans encounter. She actively serves on the Mid-Atlantic Pension Liaison Group for the Joint Tax Exempt/Government Entity (“TE/GE”) Council that brings together the TE/GE Division of the IRS and active employee benefits practitioners to share emerging ideas in the employee benefits sphere. Jewell has been vocal about her support of the Cannabis industry’s right and access to retirement plans to both the IRS and DOL.
Jewell’s role prior to becoming a lawyer was as an internal auditor at Morgan Guaranty Trust (now JP Morgan Chase). She is acutely aware of the types of risks (financial, insufficient controls, image risk) against which to guard when Trust Integritas is privileged to serve in a Corporate Trustee or Custodian role with respect to cash and similar assets.
Robert’s experience is much like Jewell’s. He has had daily interaction with retirement plan fiduciaries. His phone never stops ringing, as headhunters are keenly aware of his uncommon background that blends employee benefit plans and Cannabis company benefit packages. In the early part of his career, Robert consulted for the retirement plan industry and its plan service providers for seven years. Equipped with a Masters of Law in Taxation (LLM), Robert has practiced as a lawyer for over two decades with particular emphasis in executive compensation, retirement plans, employee benefits, and the funding and custodying of and fiduciary obligations relating to such arrangements. Robert has lectured on the topics of and has trained board directors and staff on fiduciary duties and exposure, prevention, and curing of any prohibited transactions. As well, he has been a guest speaker at accounting, retirement plan, and tax conferences around the country and has been interviewed by national media regarding a variety of fiduciary issues relating to both employer retirement and health plans.
Both Jewell and Robert have handled pension and IRA investments into certain entities and funds, and they are adept at identifying and preventing any problematic transactions that might trigger prohibited transaction concerns under the IRS disqualified person rules. A Google search of Jewell and Robert will reveal how prolific they have been in the qualified and non-qualified plan space, with the attendant rules pertaining to disqualified persons/fiduciaries.
