Kyle Flaherty

Partner | Employment, Labor, and Benefits

About

Kyle represents a diverse group of clients across the employee benefits and labor and employment spectrum. His practice focuses on representing boards of trustees of Taft-Hartley pension and group health plans and counseling employee benefit plan fiduciaries on all aspects of ERISA compliance and plan management and administration. In his role as sole general counsel to Taft-Hartley plans, Kyle frequently represents the plans’ interests in matters before the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, the U.S. Treasury Department and the U.S. Department of Labor.

  • He also represents independent fiduciaries to ERISA-governed plans and litigates cases in federal courts as needed for his Taft-Hartley plan clients. In addition, Kyle represents employers in an array of labor and employment matters, including engaging in strategic planning and collective bargaining and defending arbitration claims arising under collective bargaining agreements or statutory claims alleging employment discrimination claims. He regularly provides his clients with general employment counseling and has extensive experience in representing employers in defending unfair labor practice charges brought in regional offices of the National Labor Relations Board. Kyle also advises clients on all aspects of withdrawal liability under Title IV of ERISA, from both the plan and the employer perspective, and has significant experience in arbitrating and litigating contested withdrawal liability assessments. His practice also includes advising clients on the labor, employment and employee benefits’ implications of corporate transactions.

Practices

  • Commercial Litigation

  • Employment and Labor

Admissions

  • New York

  • U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit

  • U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York

  • U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York

Education

  • Catholic University School of Law, J.D.

  • Montclair State College, B.A.

Experience

  • FisherBroyles, LLP

  • Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, LLP

Representative Transactions

  • Successfully represented multiemployer pension plan in securing the first joint Benefits Suspension and Partition Orders from the U.S. Treasury Department and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, respectively, saving Taft-Hartley pension fund client over $100 million in pension liabilities.

  • Successfully represented multiemployer pension plan in resolving multi-million dollar partial withdrawal liability assessment against national newspaper publisher.

  • Successfully represented company in defending multi-million dollar withdrawal liability assessments made by multiemployer pension plan against California-based commonly controlled portfolio companies.

  • Successfully represented Chicago-based hospitality company in defending multi-million dollar withdrawal liability assessments improperly assessed by multiemployer pension plan.

  • Successfully defended major New York City hospital system from series of unfair labor practice charges alleging discriminatory hiring practices designed to avoid labor successorship obligations under federal law.

  • Successfully represented high-profile New York City hospitality company in discharge arbitration challenging just cause termination.

  • Successfully represented New York-based social services agency in numerous discharge and contract interpretation arbitrations against District Council 37, 1199 SEIU and 32BJ SEIU.

  • Successfully defended national trades show exhibitor in two contract interpretation arbitrations commenced by Chicago-based Teamsters union.

  • Prevailed in labor arbitration involving discharge of tenured professor at elite New York City private school and successfully defended arbitration award in federal district court action seeking to vacate award.

  • Represented numerous corporate clients in understanding complex actual and contingent benefit obligations implicated by purchase or sale of businesses and in structuring corporate transactions to avoid the imposition of withdrawal liability by application of Section 4204 of ERISA.

Publications

  • Co-Author — “A Labor Lawyer’s Guide to Avoiding the Surprise Withdrawal Liability Assessment.” Thomson Reuters News & Insights, May 2012.

  • Co-Author — “Protecting the Subrogation Rights of Self-Insured Group Health Plans.” Employee Benefits Journal, Vol. 26, No. 2, June 2001.