| Summary: | 博士 === 國立政治大學 === 法律學系 === 89 === Old-age income security is a sharing social problem of all industrialized countries. 「Three tiers (pillars) of economic security」 has been used for solving this problem in Taiwan, Germany and U.S.A. The first tier is obligatory social insurance system established by the countries; the second tier is the composition of “supplementary pension plans” created by companies or employers; the third tier is personal advance arrangements (include saving, purchase of insurance, investment, etc.).
This dissertation concentrates on the legal protection of supplementary pension plans. The supplementary pension plans in Taiwan is a double-track institution. While the voluntary part of it is rather insignificant, this institution is mainly in obligatory part. This obligatory supplementary pension plans is designed to be only one type － defined benefit plans, and there is only one designated funding agency － the Central Trust of China.
In U.S.A. the supplementary pension plans used to be called “private pension plans”; in Germany the supplementary pension plans used to be called “company pensions (Betriebsrenten)”. These two countries adopt voluntary institutions. The types and funding agencies of their supplementary pension plans are plural.
In order to protect the rights of pension, the relevant laws were enacted in Taiwan, Germany， and U.S.A. Regulations about employee retirement benefits were included in the “Labor Standards Law” enacted in 1984 in Taiwan. These regulations created minimum standards for the establishment, requirement of benefit, funding and funding agency, benefit formulas of retirement plans. However these regulations lacked protection of pension expectations and rights to pension against insolvency or bankruptcy of supporting employers. In Germany the relevant regulations about supplementary pension plans are to be found in the “Act on Company Pensions” in force since December 1974. This Act regulated very limitedly. It established minimum standards for company pensions, especially relating to protection of pension expectations, and pension benefit rights against insolvency of supporting employers. In the same year the “Employee Retirement Income Security Act” of 1974 (ERISA) was enacted in U.S.A.. This comprehensive employee benefit law not only stressed on protection of employee benefit rights (including protecting vesting right), but also created insurance for pension plan terminations.
This dissertation mainly compares the legal institutions relating to supplementary pension plans in Taiwan, Germany and U.S.A. on the basis of the above statute laws relating to the supplementary pension plans of these three countries.
Chapter 1 is the introduction of this research. Chapter 2、3 and 4 discuss the legal institutions relating to supplementary pension plans of these three countries. In each section of each chapter the same problems are discussed. Section 1 provides an overview of the historic background of supplementary pension plans and development of relevant laws, including how the supplementary pension plans have formed and expanded, how the law regulated, and problems that have been caused after enactment of the law relating to supplementary pension plans. Section 2 firstly discusses the core legal concept of supplementary pension in each country, and how it differentiates from other benefits of employers. Then this section probes into the legal bases of supplementary pension claims and the characteristics of supplementary pension. Section 3 analyzes different types of supplementary pension plans, how they operate, and legal relations that have been produced. Section 4 explores pension funding. Section 5 discusses the general legal protection of pension benefits, including participation, requirement of benefit, payment of benefit. The question of how supplementary pension integrates with social security benefit and counteracts the effect of inflation is also discussed. Section 6 discusses how the relating laws of supplementary pension plans protect pension expectations, why the laws of Germany and U.S.A. protect pension expectations, when the pension benefit rights are nonforfeitable, how the nonforfeitable benefit is accrued, under which condition a nonforfeitable benefit can cash out, and whether the nonforfeitable benefit is portable when the employee changes the job? The last section discusses the legal protection against insolvency of employers or termination of pension plans.
After comparing the supplementary pension plans and its legal protections of Taiwan, Germany, and U.S.A.，chapter 5 examines advantages and disadvantages of the two recent drafts of supplementary pension plans reforms proposed by CLA (Council of Labor Affairs)in Taiwan. One is “Draft of the Old-age Supplementary Insurance of Employees” , and the other is “Draft of Employee Pension Act “ . The possibilities of having other ways for reforming supplementary pension plans institution of this country is also discussed in this chapter. The last chapter puts research results of the preceding chapters into a conclusion.
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