Candace Quinn has more than 25 years of experience in the employee benefits and executive compensation industry. Candace provides tax and legal consulting in employee benefits and executive compensation, fiduciary standards, best practice corporate governance, accounting and internal controls with respect to multinational and domestic corporations, partnerships, joint ventures, boards of directors and not-for-profit entities. She focuses her practice on US and cross-border regulatory and operational compliance as well as executive compensation consulting, Internal Revenue Codes (IRC), Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), legal, judiciary, and tax matters concerning the design and administration of qualified and non-qualified retirement plans. Candace also has wide-ranging experience with defined benefit pensions and cash balance plans, defined contribution, profit sharing and 401(k) plans, 403(b) tax deferred annuity plans and supplemental executive retirement plans, incentive plans and nonqualified deferred compensation programs under IRC 409A, stock purchase plans, and health and welfare benefit plans.

She conducts fiduciary investigative audits and due diligence regulatory and operational compliance reviews of qualified retirement plans, and 403(b)tax deferred annuity plans including advising on internal controls and best practice governance standards. She advises on fiduciary aspects of investments under ERISA, rules for pooled investment vehicles including structuring investments to comply with the fiduciary and the prohibited transaction aspects of ERISA regarding alternative investment vehicles, provides guidance on ERISA 25-percent plan asset test and registration issues for a qualified plan asset manager. She provides counsel on executive compensation planning, including the design and drafting equity and non-equity incentive programs. She also counsels on supplemental executive retirement plans, deferred compensation arrangements including secular trusts; advises on equity and non-equity based plans for publicly traded and privately held companies, which include non-qualified stock option plans, incentive stock option plans, restricted stock plans, stock appreciation rights, member appreciation rights and phantom stock plans. Candace designs and drafts employee retention agreements and bonus programs to attract and retain key talent. Further, she regularly advises on health, welfare and retiree medical programs including Voluntary Employee Benefit Associations (VEBAs), and implementation of the Consolidated Omnibus Reconciliation Act (COBRA). She conducts Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) privacy and security reviews for compliance and provides counsel on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) and Pension Protection Act (PPA).

Candace's clients have included public and private companies in areas from finance, insurance technology, health care, life sciences and real estate to tax-exempt colleges, universities and charitable organizations. She also represents governments, boards of directors and compensation committees. Her health care experience includes counseling hospitals, hospital systems, academic medical centers, faculty practice groups, health technology companies, physicians' practices, and other health care and life science providers, as well as pharmaceutical manufactures in connection with employee benefits issues. She conducts due diligence plan reviews, including advising on third party administration and vendor agreements regarding compliance. She counsels, negotiates and drafts ERISA provisions in merger and acquisition transactions. She prepares plan documents to amend for compliance, freeze and restructure retirement plans as well as address funding and distribution issues and transactional reviews for mergers, acquisitions and divestitures. Candace represents plan sponsors regarding plan corrections to the IRS and Department of Labor for compliance, handles government and compliance investigations and audits, tax controversies and resolutions including those undertaken by federal and state regulatory and enforcement agencies and has obtained IRS recognition of tax-exempt status for numerous organizations.

Candace’s healthcare experience includes counseling medical service companies and tax exempt hospitals, hospital systems, academic medical centers, faculty practice groups, health technology companies, physician’s practices and other healthcare and life science providers, as well as pharmaceutical manufacturers in connection with employee benefits issues.

Candace is a member of the American Bar Association’s Section of Taxation and Health Law, New York Bar Association and the Massachusetts Bar Association.  She is also the co-founder and co-president of Women’s Executive Circle of New York.

Publications

• Mentioned (As Women's Executive Circle of New York), “Report Parses Wall Street Workforce,” The Wall Street Journal, December 2, 2011.Ÿ 
• Author, “Governmental Investigation of Executive and Board Compensation Intensifies at Not-For-Profit Organizations: Challenges to the Rebuttable Presumption,” BNA Pension & Benefits Daily, December 8, 2011.Ÿ 
• Quoted, “Women Hold Few Top Jobs at N.Y. Firms,” The Wall Street Journal, October 28, 2011.Ÿ 
• Co-author, “Fee Disclosure of Defined Contribution Plans: The State of Fiduciary Duties,” Pension & Benefits Daily (July 2010).Ÿ 
• Co-author, “Enforcement Efforts Take Aim at Executive Compensation of Tax Exempt Health Care Entities,” Pension & Benefits Daily (December 2009).Ÿ 
• Co-author, “The Recovery Act’s Mechanism to Stimulate the Economy Requires Adjustment: Is More Legislation the Answer?” Pension & Benefits Daily (April 2009).Ÿ 
• Co-author, “Modernization of the Section 403(b) Plan and its ERISA Implications,” Pension & Benefits Daily (July 2008).Ÿ 
• Co-author, “State of New York Business Leaders in New York,” Women’s Executive Circle of New York Census Study prepared in partnership with Cornell University Industrial Labor Relations School (February 2009).Ÿ 
• Co-author, “ERISA’s Fiduciary Duties: Meeting the ‘Reasonable’ Contract and Fee Requirements,” Pension & Benefits Daily
  (April 2008).Ÿ 
• Co-author, “Substantial Risk of Forfeiture and Bona Fide Severance: Synchronizing the Layers of Sections 457(f) and 409A,” Executive Compensation Library Journal Reports: Law and Policy (2008).Ÿ 
• Co-author, “Compensation as a Vehicle for Company Growth,” Capital Growth Interactive 2006 Venture Guide.

Presentations

• Speaker, "The State of Women Business Leaders in New York State," Women's Executive Circle of New York Census Study prepared in partnership with Columbia Business School and presented at Bank of America, for the Women's Executive Circle of New York, November 2011.Ÿ 
• "The Path to the Boardroom,” Women’s Executive Circle of New York and Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, July 2011.Ÿ 
• "Addressing the New Regulations and Challenges Facing Sponsors of 403(b), Retirement Plans and SERPs," Greater New York Hospital Association, New York, August 2010.Ÿ 
• "Dealing Successfully with Compliance & Enforcement Programs for 401(k) and Other Retirement Plans," Directors Roundtable Institute, New York, July 2010.Ÿ 
• “Addressing the New Regulations and Challenges Facing 403(b) Plans and Sponsors - Are You Ready?” KPMG and Greenberg Traurig Event, May 2010.
• "Women's Leadership Breakfast," Women's Executive Circle and Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, May 2010.
• "The State of Women Business Leaders in New York State," Women's Executive Circle of New York Census Study prepared in partnership with Columbia Business School, February 2010.
• “State of New York Business Leaders in New York,” Women’s Executive Circle of New York Census Study prepared in partnership with Cornell University Industrial Labor Relations School, Women and Work Program presented at PricewaterhouseCoopers (February 10, 2009).Ÿ 
• “Women’s Leadership and the Economic Crisis: Does Gender Matter?” a debate on The New York Economy presented by Cornell University Institute of Women and Work, ILR School and the President’s Council of Cornell’s Women. New York (October 20, 2008).
• “State of New York Business Leaders in New York,” Women’s Executive Circle of New York Census Study prepared in partnership with Cornell University Industrial Labor Relations School, Women and Work Program, presented at Citi Smith Barney for Women’s Executive Circle of New York (February 2008).