Terrence M. Deneen

Of Counsel

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For over thirty-four years of practice and government service, Terry Deneen has enjoyed the challenges and complexity associated with ERISA and the related laws governing employee benefits. Terry has developed expertise in an uncommonly broad array of subjects, including legislative drafting, federal appellate practice, bankruptcy litigation and negotiations, multiemployer plan liability arbitrations, and adjudicating pension disputes between federal agencies. His clients have been equally diverse: pension plans, bankruptcy debtors, corporations, Indian tribal governments, law firms, a group of federal district court and bankruptcy judges, and federal agencies. He is well-known for his work with underfunded multiemployer retirement plans and financially distressed corporate plan sponsors.

Terry began his career with the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, where he was a staff attorney from 1978-81 and helped secure the passage of the landmark Multiemployer Pension Plan Amendments Act of 1980. He then joined the legal staff of the UMWA Health and Retirement Funds (1981-84), and thereafter became an associate, and later partner, in a Washington DC benefits law firm.

Terry rejoined PBGC in 1992 and eventually became the Chief Insurance Program Officer -from late 2004 until his retirement in early 2011. As the CIPO, he was one of the highest-ranking career employees at PBGC with responsibility over the agency’s insurance programs, and directed the work of over 150 agency accountants, financial analysts, actuaries, and attorneys in cases and negotiations in high profile matters such as the Chrysler, General Motors and Delphi bankruptcies. Terry also led PBGC’s multiemployer plan insurance program, a task that required frequent interaction, instruction, negotiation and occasional disagreement with Congress, its staff, GAO, other executive branch agencies, labor unions and trade associations. He received the PBGC’s coveted Distinguished Career Service Award (2007).

Terry is a Charter Fellow of the American College of Employee Benefits Counsel. He has been a frequent speaker for various ABA committees, the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans, and the National Coordinating Committee for Multiemployer Plans.

Government Service

• Chief Insurance Program Officer, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (2004-2011)
• Principal Deputy General Counsel, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (1997-2004)
• Deputy General Counsel, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (1994-1997)
• Associate General Counsel, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (1992-1994)
• Attorney-Advisor to Director of Policy and Planning, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (1980-81)
• Staff Attorney, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (1978-80)

Education

• University of Illinois: JD cum laude (1978)
• University of Illinois: AM (1975)
• University of Illinois: AB magna cum laude (1975)

Contact Information

Terrence M. Deneen
BAILEY & EHRENBERG PLLC
1015 18th Street NW
Suite 204
Washington, D.C. 20036
Phone: (202) 331-1331
Fax: (202) 318-7071
tmd@becounsel.com