Susan Niver

Practice Areas

Ms. Niver focuses her practice on advising compensation, retirement, investment, and audit committees, as well as boards and plan administrators, in a broad range of employee benefits matters. Her experience spans ERISA, qualified retirement plans, multiemployer and Taft Hartley funds, executive compensation, fiduciary responsibilities, health and welfare benefit programs, and issues specific to tax exempt organizations.

She provides comprehensive guidance on qualified plans including single-employer, multiple-employer and multiemployer defined benefit plans, cash balance, variable annuity plans, profit sharing plans, ESOPs and 401(k) plans. Her counsel covers the full plan lifecycle, from design and structuring to administration, amendment, merger, and termination. She also assists plan sponsors and fiduciaries on issues of governance, compliance, investments, disclosures, lump sum windows, pension de-risking, missing participant procedures, cybersecurity compliance and matters before the IRS and DOL (filings, audits, investigations, correcting failures) and helping plan sponsors minimize risk and liabilities.

In the area of executive compensation, Ms. Niver advises employers on the design of executive compensation arrangements including bonus plans, nonqualified deferred compensation plans, excess plans, top-hat plans, rabbi trusts, retention awards, severance, long-term incentive plans, split-dollar plans and deferred compensation award agreements. She helps employers, boards and committees on compensation strategies, tax issues, restrictive covenants including noncompetition, non-solicitation and confidentiality agreements and 409A compliance. Her work includes drafting and negotiating executive employment, consulting, separation and release agreements.

Ms. Niver regularly advises clients on best practices to minimize fiduciary risk through training, education and the development of strong governance practices, including committee charters and internal policies. She represents employers in navigating legal, financial and administrative challenges and keeps them informed on legislative and regulatory developments.

Her extensive experience with tax exempt organizations and educational institutions includes advising on 403(b), 457(b) and 457(f) plans, Form 990 reporting and compensation benchmarking and compliance with intermediate sanctions under Section 4958 and excise tax mitigation strategies under Section 4960. She prepares and updates plan documents, rabbi trust and vendor agreements, top-hat filings and supplemental executive retirement plans (SERPs).

Ms. Niver also handles health and welfare benefit programs, including compliance with the ACA, HIPAA Privacy and Security, vendor agreements, fringe benefits, FSAs, VEBAs, MEWAs, retiree plans, COBRA, COVID-19, and legislative and regulatory developments.