[Congressional Bills 107th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 3139 Introduced in Senate (IS)]







107th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                S. 3139

To provide a right to be heard for participants and beneficiaries of an 
employee pension benefit plan of a debtor in order to protect pensions 
                    of those employees and retirees.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                            October 17, 2002

 Mr. Sessions (for himself, Mr. Grassley, and Mr. Leahy) introduced the 
        following bill; which was read twice and referred to the 
        Committee on the JudiciaryYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
To provide a right to be heard for participants and beneficiaries of an 
employee pension benefit plan of a debtor in order to protect pensions 
                    of those employees and retirees.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This act may be cited as the ``Employee Pension Bankruptcy 
Protection Act of 2002''.

SEC. 2. PURPOSE AND INTENT.

    The purpose and intent of this Act is to provide employees and 
retirees with a greater likelihood of having outstanding pension 
liabilities paid by a corporation that files for bankruptcy by allowing 
the employees and retirees of that corporation the right to be heard 
before the bankruptcy court.

SEC. 3. RIGHT TO BE HEARD.

    Section 1109 of title 11, United States Code, is amended by adding 
at the end the following:
    ``(c) In a case in which the debtor is the sponsor of an employee 
pension benefit plan pursuant to section 3(2) of the Employee 
Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (29 U.S.C. 1002(2)), and such 
plan is likely to be terminated pursuant to title IV of that Act or 
substantially underfunded by the debtor resulting in a hardship to the 
participants or beneficiaries, a representative of the participants (as 
defined in section 3(7) of that Act) and beneficiaries (as defined in 
section 3(8) of that Act) who are entitled to benefits under such plan 
and who may be adversely affected by events in the case, may appear and 
be heard with respect to a sale of all or substantially all of the 
assets of the debtor or with respect to a plan of reorganization, 
provided that such participants and beneficiaries may employ counsel 
and other professionals who shall be compensated from the estate of the 
debtor.''.
                                 <all>