News Release

U.S. Department of Labor For Immediate Release

Office of Public Affairs Mon., March 10, 2003
Atlanta Contact: Sharon Morrissey
USDL 03-33 Phone: (202) 693-8664

Labor Department Sues Former Sea Island Corporation’s Pension Plan

Administrator for Failing to Forward Employee Contributions

Atlanta – The U.S. Department of Labor sued a former administrator of the Johns Island, S.C.-
based Sea Island Comprehensive Health Care Corporation’s defined contribution pension plan
for his failure to forward $72,213.49 in employee contributions to the plan and for commingling
the funds in the company’s general account.

The suit, filed Feb. 27, 2003 in federal district court in Charleston, seeks the appointment of an
independent fiduciary to oversee and, if necessary, to terminate the plan. The suit also asks the
court to require William Pinder, Jr. to repay the plan for losses caused by his fiduciary breaches
and to bar him permanently from acting in a fiduciary capacity to any plan under the Employee
Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). Pinder was the company president from 1985 until his
resignation in February 2000.

Sea Island Comprehensive Health Care Corporation is a non-profit corporation. Its plan had 207
participants, who were allowed to contribute up to 20 percent of their gross compensation to the
plan via payroll deduction. The plan had assets totaling $844,803 as of Dec. 31, 1998. The suit
alleges that from May 1999 through 2000, Sea Island withheld the employees’ contributions and
never remitted them to the plan.

Howard Marsh, director of the department’s Atlanta Regional Office of the Employee Benefits
Security Administration (EBSA), said, “We filed this case to ensure that the plan participants
recoup the money they set aside for their retirement years.”

Employers with similar problems, who are not yet the subject of an investigation by EBSA, may
be eligible to participate in the department's Voluntary Fiduciary Correction Program (VFCP).
Participation in the VFCP requires employers to make workers whole but allows them to avoid
EBSA enforcement actions, civil penalties and any applicable excise taxes. For more
information see www.dol.gov/ebsa.

Employers and workers can contact the Atlanta Regional Office at 1-404-562-2156 or EBSA’s
toll free number, 1-866-444-EBSA (3272), for help with any problems relating to private-sector
pension and health plans.

# # #

(Chao v. William Pinder, Jr.) Civil Action No. CV-2:03-653-18

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