29 U.S.C. § 1386
Section 1386 · Adjustment for partial withdrawal; determination of amount; reduction for partial withdrawal liability; procedures applicable
This is § 4206 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974
Amended 1 time on record
Applied in 19 court decisions — leading case 636 F. Supp. 641 - Robbins v. Pepsi-Cola Metropolitan Bottling Co. (1986)
Most recently applied in Fund v. Quad/Graphics, Inc. (December 2018)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
(a) The amount of an employer's liability for a partial withdrawal, before the application of sections 1399(c)(1) and 1405 of this title, is equal to the product of—
(1) the amount determined under section 1391 of this title, and adjusted under section 1389 of this title if appropriate, determined as if the employer had withdrawn from the plan in a complete withdrawal—
(A) on the date of the partial withdrawal, or
(B) in the case of a partial withdrawal described in section 1385(a)(1) of this title (relating to 70-percent contribution decline), on the last day of the first plan year in the 3-year testing period,
multiplied by
(2) a fraction which is 1 minus a fraction—
(A) the numerator of which is the employer's contribution base units for the plan year following the plan year in which the partial withdrawal occurs, and
(B) the denominator of which is the average of the employer's contribution base units for—
(i) except as provided in clause (ii), the 5 plan years immediately preceding the plan year in which the partial withdrawal occurs, or
(ii) in the case of a partial withdrawal described in section 1385(a)(1) of this title (relating to 70-percent contribution decline), the 5 plan years immediately preceding the beginning of the 3-year testing period.
(b)(1) In the case of an employer that has withdrawal liability for a partial withdrawal from a plan, any withdrawal liability of that employer for a partial or complete withdrawal from that plan in a subsequent plan year shall be reduced by the amount of any partial withdrawal liability (reduced by any abatement or reduction of such liability) of the employer with respect to the plan for a previous plan year.
(2) The corporation shall prescribe such regulations as may be necessary to provide for proper adjustments in the reduction provided by paragraph (1) for—
(A) changes in unfunded vested benefits arising after the close of the prior year for which partial withdrawal liability was determined,
(B) changes in contribution base units occurring after the close of the prior year for which partial withdrawal liability was determined, and
(C) any other factors for which it determines adjustment to be appropriate,
so that the liability for any complete or partial withdrawal in any subsequent year (after the application of the reduction) properly reflects the employer's share of liability with respect to the plan.