The August 17, 2009 Employee Ownership Update is online and discusses the following:

• ESOP Improvements Act Introduced in Congress
• The Better the ESPP, the Better the Return on Investment
• Ninth Circuit Issues Important Decision Limiting Indemnification for ESOP Fiduciaries
• Errata: Two NCEO Member Winning Workplaces Awards Finalists Not Listed

The Update discusses The ESOP Promotion and Improvement Act of 2009 (S. 1612) and provides a link to the Full Text, noting that the bill's supporters expect the bill to serve as a useful tool for proposing amendments to future legislation:

Each Congress, ESOP advocates, working with the ESOP Association, introduce the ESOP Improvements Act. The bill's supporters do not expect the bill to pass per se, but it serves as a useful tool for proposing amendments to any tax legislation that comes up. In the past, some elements of the biennial proposal have become part of the law.

We have had some discussions in recent weeks about the Ninth Circuit's decision in Johnson v. Couturier, No. 08-17369 including discussions on Appointing a Non-Company Officer as Fiduciary, Fiduciary Best Practices: Fees and Liability Insurance Coverage, and Advancing Defense Costs under Corporate Indemnification Agreements. The Update shares their perspective on the case:

The case has an unusual fact pattern in many respects, but if these rulings hold up, they raise potentially important issues for ESOP fiduciaries, both with respect to stricter standards for setting executive pay and for the ability of companies to indemnify fiduciaries. Taken to its limits, the decision could make indemnification impractical, meaning fiduciaries would have to rely entirely on insurance.

It also discusses how a new survey on employee stock purchase plans (ESPPs) found that "the better the terms of the plan, the better the return on investment plan administrators believed the company received from having a plan."